


the falling and burning of leaves

by maevestrom



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, Death, Drawing, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old Together, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Inspired by Music, Meta Treated as IU History, Minor Injuries, Post-Divorce, Surgery, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29350791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maevestrom/pseuds/maevestrom
Summary: "She always has you, garnet. And whatever you tell her, she treasures forever like actual gems.""I still get a little paranoid when someone tells me they love me before they leave."Edelgard, Annette, and five months of life after forty-seven years of death
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Edelgard von Hresvelg, former and current, smaller ships
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	the falling and burning of leaves

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there and welcome to my magnum opus. 
> 
> I love 3h. I love Edelnette despite being the only human who does. I love music. I love distractions from my cancer. I love love love writing.
> 
> This is the longest oneshot I have ever written- a table of contents of pseudochapters can be ctrl-f'd at the beginning. They're all from song titles/lyrics. Here's a playlist of all the songs that inspired me this time: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/19BdAXhESdn3UTYNvChCTS?si=O-ZwafoZTV-BlP11p6cE7g&utm_source=copy-link
> 
> I hope you enjoy this fantastic work. 
> 
> -maeve
> 
> Edit: [ see right here for some brilliant story-related artwork by Sundoodle! ](https://twitter.com/Sundoodle_EP/status/1363999588907114499?s=19)

  * **My war is over**


  * **I'm learning to live without the heartache**


  * **To think that we could stay the same,**


  * **Is an old memory just another way of saying goodbye?**


  * **You have my heart so don't hurt me**


  * **Silence is the loudest parting word you never say**


  * **Samskeyti**


  * **The sun will set for you**


  * **Whatever you do, don't let go**


  * **Lower your eyelids to die with the sun**


  * **Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end**



  
  


**My war is over**

Edelgard vaguely recalls the valedictorian (likely Mercedes, naturally) of her boarding school graduation mentioning that the future was looking bright for all the soon-to-be-former students. She recalls better being the only one (besides Hubert, though he never celebrated) to not react to it with more than a blank look, poorly hiding apprehension at being fed a lie. 

She recalls Annette being the only one to ask if she was okay. 

Annette Dominic has let her hair grow out. It hasn't grown very far, mind, but she's made progress, orange slicks reaching the tips of her shoulders when she lets it down like she has today. She sits next to Edelgard, both wearing matching graduation gowns. It's taken a long time for Annette to become close enough of a friend to take her right hand, though she acknowledges that others have moved away to open that honor. Still, she took it. 

When she asks, Edelgard nods so stiffly that she almost apologizes for lying. Annette gives her the look she always does when she doesn't believe her, but concedes that she has secrets to keep. Annette reads her so well. It's one of the many reasons she's so very fond of her. 

The valedictorian (who was _absolutely_ Mercedes upon deeper thought; she feels silly for even considering otherwise) steps down from the stage to applause almost orderly and polite save for one joyful redhead cheering on her best friend. Edelgard has never enjoyed the loud and disruptive, but there are exceptions. 

Annette's happiness makes her happy. She wonders what it would be like to be optimistic. She's inheriting her father's firm, after all. Some would say that's moving her way up in the world, but unless Edelgard does it right, she's not going to forgive herself for as long as she lives. 

She _has_ to do it right. No bright future is given; it's won. 

~

Edelgard has an eight-by-ten of that day. It was after the ceremony where several of them stayed at school for an obnoxiously chaste party. Edelgard didn't like it. Annette even pointed out that Sylvain would have absolutely brought them alcohol. She doesn't remember what anyone else did.

They all took a photo- about thirty students, a handful of teachers, and even the superintendent and a couple of assistants. She stood next to Annette off of the left edge, on the ground where short people go.

There are several X-marks of the photo; enough to remove presences from the photo, but still leaving some of their faces intact so she can remember who they were, how they sounded, how they smiled, what they meant to her.

There are too many Xs on that photo. More than half, at this point, just of people she knows still, not even accounting for those who don't talk to her anymore.

She's in the stage of life where it's not uncommon for people to die. Some deaths were before their time- Lysithea from cancer, Constance's disappearance, Linhardt's in a car accident (asleep at the wheel- if the very memory didn't make her sick she'd laugh)- those all happened before she turned thirty. She mourned those for months. She still does sometimes. Those three were some astonishingly close friends of hers and it still chafes her, even irrationally, that the universe showed no care in its cruelty. 

Now, it's less surprising. Mr. Von Essar was the first person of a certain age to pass away of natural causes. Ms. Casagranda almost conceded that as much as they fought, they could not live apart, and was found dead by alcohol poisoning a week later. Edelgard was too disturbed to remember to mourn, holding a sobbing Dorothea and staring into the sunset. 

The students started to pass as well. She knows who in all of the classes when it comes to those thirty students. She knows how. She wishes the reasons weren't as varied. Some were still accidents. Some were from illness. Others, negligence. There's been more than one suicide, a number far too high when _one_ is too high. 

She remembers them in order of passing, the only way to hide the pain. Gustave, Felix, Marianne, Bernadetta, Emile, Alois, Balthus, Caspar, Dimitri, Dorothea, Ignatz, Jeritza, Hubert, Seteth, Raphael, and now Mercedes.

**I'm learning to live without the heartache**

Mercedes' funeral has everyone wearing white, not black. It was her request. Edelgard understands the gesture behind it, but she can't say that she cares for it. The idea of celebrating one's life is nice, but no matter how much white she makes her friends wear…

Annette is still two people down the church pew, trying not to cry her eyes out. She tries with all her might, but Edelgard knows what a broken heart looks like. She knows that Annette- to this day, as peppy, upbeat, kind, _youthful_ as she was in high school- should never have to deal with this, much less as much as she has. Her original teacher at twenty-three, her father at thirty, her girlfriend at thirty-two, her husband at forty, and now her best friend at forty-six.

"It's just so much," she tries to whisper into Edelgard's ear but it's not really a whisper when she's sobbing. "It's just so much." 

"It's going to be okay," Edelgard tries to reassure her, which she's never been good at. "This too shall pass, Annette. I promise."

Edelgard passed a stony, silent Ingrid to get to Annette. Ingrid has reason enough to mourn, being married to Mercedes for four years. Edelgard appreciates that, but she doesn't know Ingrid like she does Annette. She doesn't love Ingrid like she does Annette. Moreover, she's not here for Mercedes, she's here for her friends.

Mostly the ones named Annette. Annette, who has always had to mourn someone more special to her than Edelgard. The least Edelgard could do is hold her and say _I'm around, I'll be around if you need me._

Annette has barely spoken since Mercedes succumbed, so it's little surprise that despite her rather remarkable voice, she's not the one singing. Flayn is astonishingly good at piano and not a half-bad singer, so she's on the church stage performing. Her voice is a little too soft, but she is sweet even if flawed.

 _Dorothea would have performed it so well,_ her mind butts in, but Edelgard shoves the thought away, holding the mess of Annette on her shoulder. 

It's a little on the nose when she gently croons the words _her soul slides away_ . Still, the thesis statement of the song, _don't look back in anger, I heard her say,_ feels like it was written to and directed at Edelgard. It’s just that she has no issues with looking back. She never truly saw eye-to-eye with Mercedes in the twenty-nine years that the two knew each other, but there's no need to hold grudges in death. 

Besides, her purpose is here to comfort a broken, mourning Annette, who four funerals later sobs just as breathlessly and jaggedly as she did in the first. That much, Edelgard will mourn. That much, Edelgard hates the same. She hates that there's never been a decade where Annette was not deeply mourning a loved one, the losses hitting so hard that now, by process of elimination, Edelgard is her favorite person alive. 

"It's not fair," Annette sobs, utterly helpless. Edelgard cannot help but agree. 

~

Edelgard has had more free time than she can successfully utilize for a few years. She works where she can just to feel productive, even though she still has some money from selling the firm. She's not in the best shape so she has to forego heavy or frequent manual labor. She isn't sure whether or not to chalk it up to age or her natural constitution; she's never been strong or spunky. 

It's… incorrect and humiliating to go from owning a law firm to calling in to a temp agency, but again, it's about being productive when she can and patching up when she can't. 

Though for the foreseeable future, she can't see an immediate future that she doesn't give to Annette.

"I can't believe I'm still hung up on it." 

Annette says that every time she mourns and it gradually becomes more and more ridiculous. Maybe you'd expect to get over losing your favorite teacher in a week. Your father, as estranged as you two tended to be, will take longer. Your two spouses… Edelgard can't imagine. She lost hers to divorce, and she knows the happiness she felt at that decision wasn't normal. Now, it's Annette's best friend of thirty years. A week doesn't even warrant comparison to something fifteen-hundred weeks longer.

 _Longer than Lysithea was alive,_ her mind supplies. 

She drowns it out with "Annette, you're fine," holding her clasped hands as they sit on the white couch in Edelgard's living room that's been stained up so much that she doesn't care if Annette were to wipe her nose on the arm much less cry on it a little, so she should really stop apologizing. 

She sniffs. "I mean, yeah," she admits. "I've never really been the patient type, you know." 

Edelgard smiles, a cheeky little thing. "I absolutely _do_ know," she snipes, pinching her leg so slightly. Thankfully, Annette giggles a little. "I've always been worried you'd force the calendar to declare you eighty years old just to get it over with." 

Annette's chuckle is darker. "You have," she admits with a sad smile. "It was true enough, yeah. I've just been trying to appreciate the time I have right now." 

Edelgard's ghost of a smile slips. "I wasn't trying to chastise you, dear." 

Annette doesn't look at her. "I know," she responds brusquely. "I'm just saying." With an awkward laugh: "This girl ain't getting any younger is all she's saying." 

(Edelgard bites her tongue so that she doesn't give away the fact that she still views Annette as a young woman, still eighteen with occasional shoulder length hair and in a graduation gown asking if she's okay. Even though Annette's forty-six now, she's the godmother to any children Edelgard was to have, and she has to redo orange dye in her hair annually and still accidentally leaves a few strands gray every time.)

Annette sighs and rests against Edelgard's shoulder. "I dunno, I guess…" She throws her hands up. "I just can't be normal about it. Like…" She gestures to the cozy little room around her like it matters. "I don't know. Been really distracted trying to work. The other profs tell me to take some time off, but they're already giving me time off of teaching just putting me in the lab. I don't want to leave them down one." 

Edelgard might actually get herself in trouble with how aggressively and non-subtly she sighs at such a statement, but she thinks the gods would grant her mercy after decades of this kind of talk. Knowing Annette would get alarmed and ask _what the hell_ otherwise she says "Annette, you shouldn't act like this is negligible. This is your best friend." With an uncomfortable swallow: "I dislike seeing you sad, of course, but I would hate it more were you to act like the justifiable sorrow you feel is irrational."

Annette blinks a couple of times and sighs. "I just…" She sighs again and turns on the couch to face Edelgard. "Like, Edelgard, here's the thing. I get that it's gonna hurt for a long time but I'm so fucking _sick_ of it that you have no idea. I mean, Father was gone since I was thirteen and it still took me months to reach baseline. I'm not surprised by myself. I'm just disappointed. I mean, look at you! You never let it break you!" 

Edelgard sighs. “Dear, what I do is not normal.” The fact that Annette finds strength in one of her biggest flaws is very disheartening. “I don’t think you should have to mourn like me.” In fact, the less that Annette is like her, the better. Edelgard tries to be very selfless, ironically, like she _is_ religious and does not want to go to hell. It’s just instead she doesn’t want to incur the disappointment of anyone she cares about. 

She knows how miserable that feels. 

Annette goes quiet for a few minutes, but still pats Edelgard’s knee from time to time. After that, she announces with a froglike choke: “I thought being quiet meant that I wouldn’t think about it, but it’s all I think about. It’s all I’ve thought about for days, for the entire week, and I spent the last year having to accept that sh-she’d be gone, a-a-and I’d be like, like this-”

“Annette.” Edelgard is kind yet firm, having had decades of practice. “Annette, don’t let these thoughts make you spiral.” Annette still struggles to breathe, and the struggle turns into hyperventilations, and Annette is lost. Edelgard just hugs her, holds her to her chest, 

Annette bows her head. “Edelgard, why do I do this every time?” 

_Because_ every time _shouldn’t be how you have to describe the death of the one you love the most._

  
  


**To think that we could stay the same,**

Just as half the students and faculty (approximately) are dead, half of them (approximately) are alive. There are three abroad; Petra calls her from Brigid occasionally, delivering news of her life through flowery language in the most confident and calm tone as though she were discussing the weather. Edelgard will never understand or capture that magic. 

_Even around Annette,_ her internal monologue mocks her. 

Nearby abroad are Cassandra and Shamir, in the latter’s native country of Dagda. Edelgard sees their Facebook posts and doubts Shamir ever expected to have a joint Facebook account they recapped their travels and doings from. Edelgard remembers a message exchange between them where she asked Shamir if it was that or an account named after their pet dog. The response wasn’t pretty, but she got a good laugh out of it.

Back at home, it might just be different. Maybe they are. Maybe they’re too close to the loved ones to only find out about their death via online obituaries that morphed into Facebook condolences as time went by. The silver lining is always seeing how each person knew the deceased a little bit. Annette read the ones about Mercedes and experienced every emotion ever to exist. _It’s like seeing her one more time,_ she said between sobs.

(Sometimes she still wishes that she was able to tell the world about Lysithea.)

There’s a lot of sorrow. Hapi’s forever changed; it’s amazing to think that she ever took life lightly. She keeps her sarcasm as a defense mechanism, but no one buys it. Hilda has never gotten over Marianne, even a decade later- such love amazes and scares her in equal measure. There are some people who _seem_ to have taken it well, but sometimes she will still hear Flayn in all of her eloquent deity-like wisdom cry whilst speaking to her father in the stars. Sometimes Claude will crack for a second- just a second- at a mention of any of his classmates. A little longer at Lorenz. She always knew it was a love-hate situation between them, but she didn’t want such gossip solved this way. 

  
  


Edelgard has spent a long time of her life trying to forget the face that's on her mind right now, gracelessly conquering every brain cell. She knew that it would be this way when she summoned those memories, but it still hurts. 

It's something she doesn't mind doing for the sake of her task. She sometimes considers it a cover for her weaknesses- a way to hold their souls in her possession alone; her compromise. But the outcome- a final serene sketch- feels like how she honors those she loves. 

She figures that, at the very least, Annette will appreciate it.

She draws Mercedes as an ideal. She vividly remembers the shape of her body, the chaste, ornate clothes that she wore, the deceptively peaceful way that she prayed. The smile and the lack of tension in her body are unusual for Edelgard to see, but she's well aware of that fact.

With a little preamble of warning and explicit consent, she sends a photo of the drawing to Annette. The response is _YOURE GONNA MAKE ME CRY MORE DAMMIT_ which is high praise to Edelgard. She tears the photo out but emotionally doesn't feel like she has the strength to keep it with the others.

 _It wouldn't be fair. Those I love, and Mercedes_.

She'll give this one to the woman who deserves it.

Edelgard loves to draw. She's quite good at it as well. She never finds it to be a necessity like she does after someone passes. After someone passes, she draws them like the last time she saw them. She first did this after disease claimed many of her siblings in a dizzying sweep. A once-bustling house was a haunting ground. They kept her awake, followed her, screamed loud enough to paralyze her with fright. She had forgotten that she loved them until she drew them. Smiling, shining, perhaps inaccurately glowing like the prophet Seiros. It was the only way to get through. She'd remember them better than anyone, her father included. 

Now, those pictures are the only way she remembers them at all besides a single family photo taken in 1979. She was six and lost them at twelve, so as one could imagine none of her siblings died like that. She took the drawings, kept them in an envelope, and put it in her bag. At Garreg Mach, all she had to do was feel for it to feel a smidge of comfort. 

To not feel alone.

  
  


**Is an old memory just another way of saying goodbye?**

Edelgard is afraid of losing people, so her friends are few. The amount of loss that shook her, changed her, stole her color was so shocking that she never knew how Annette was so genuinely bright and youthful despite losing her closest people. Edelgard has become a shell of herself. Not only does she stake her life on nothing, she could never think anyone would do the same. If she takes risky chances she shouldn't, it's because she doesn't mind being careless.

Maybe that's how she became such good friends with Sylvain. 

Charming, charismatic, flirtatious Sylvain. The kind of man that makes Edelgard’s stomach flip, yet also someone far more respectful than any men who wouldn’t leave her alone after rejection until she conspicuously reached into her purse. He’s rough around the edges but time has sanded them. Edelgard was surprised when he cried about Felix. Eight years after his death and barely for a minute, but she could tell that it was a lot.

If there’s anyone who knows the idea of mourners being hard on themselves, it’s him. 

  
  


_Sylvain- It has only been a few weeks since her death. Yet I am worried about Annette far more than myself to be honest and that might be a bit too unusual, even knowing how I am._

_She’s trying to deny herself the right to be upset. Hiding her tears. Talking badly about herself. I’ve tried to guide her away from it but, like always, she’s been very stubborn and it is very vexing._

_[Sylvain changed Edelgard’s name to Edelgard Dominic]_

_Very funny, Sylvain. My thanks._

_Hah you’re lucky I didn’t change it to Annette Simp._

_A… simp??_

One Google Search later:

_Sylvain. You are a forty-eight year old man._

_Aw, don’t worry none, buttercup. Hilda and her kid visited and the fucker’s seventeen so he’s been spouting it all over the place. I had to look it up so I could make fun of how wrong he was using it._

Edelgard sighs. 

_My decision to never have kids seems to have paid off for me._

_We dodged a bullet. Then again, we’re also in our mid-forties and bachelors so at the very least it would be something to do._

_Dying young is also something to do, Sylvain, but it does not mean I wish to partake in it._

_Anymore._

(She knows he’d catch that.)

_Not as fun. A little too drastic._

_Anyway, queen. How are you handling all of this?_

_I know what happened, but it doesn’t make it easy to deal with._

_I truly have nothing to say, and if I did it wouldn’t be to you, quite frankly, so if we can leave the subject be for now, I’ll appreciate it._

That was harsh. A little too harsh, even between them. If anyone knows that Sylvain has emotions, it’s Edie.

_Besides, I know you two were close. I would worry more about you rather than you worry about me._

(She’ll still be damned if she apologizes to him, though.)

_I’m fine, Edie-pie. I’m mourning like everyone else and doing my best to cope. Sucks, but her life and how she lived makes it easier. Worried sick about Ingrid though. She tries to stay strong and grateful for what she got but I know she’s taking it hard._

_Oh!_

She says it aloud as instantly as she types it, then realizes that she’s being loud and stops.

_So you think you can worry about someone yet tease me for worrying about someone?_

_Yeah, cause I’m not in denial that I love her. Being the last half of the greatest group since the Beatles does that. But anyway, this is about Nets._

_Poor darling, she’s lost so many people who made up a chunk of her world. I lost one and it wrecked me for a long time. She’s really strong._

_She is._

_She’s lucky she has you though._

_She is?_

_How so?_

_Cause you love her. And you’ll do anything to get her back on her feet. Think you’d sell your soul to the devil if it meant she never lost anyone else again. And for the record, I_ do _know you just started to think about it and when you have to think about it that’s a sign of love and loyalty._

She sighs, pinching her nose. Of _course_ he would bring that up. It’s the obvious answer, but not her favorite to discuss with someone who, while no longer a whore, is still the first to make fun of people with romantic feelings.

_I don’t see how my care for Annette will help her_

_I’ve tried whenever she’s lost somebody. Whether it helps or not, I don’t know._

_Sweetheart, I’m being serious. Never SOUND like it but I am. Anne-Bo-Lam’s had, like, these gems in her hand like Thanos’ gauntlet._

_If I may interject_

_What part of Thanos’ gauntlet qualifies as moving into serious territory?_

_Stay with me, Edie!_

She feels a shadow over her body from the manager and stuffs her phone in her pocket. Like 95% of the male population, he is significantly taller than Edelgard and knows it. He jerks his thumb to the pile of unstacked loaves of bread in a cart and says “Hey, we don’t have all the time in the damn world, broad. Get to stepping!”

Ah, the world of a temp. When you’re not permanently working anywhere and the staff knows it, all higher-ups tend to let their anger out on you. However, working as a temp means that consequences are doled out by the agency, and hers couldn’t care less. 

“Don’t talk to me that way,” she tells him, going to the basket. 

“Who the hell do you think you are?” he orders, eyes following her. 

“A temp you’ll never see again. Leave me alone or I’ll have you reported for harassment.” _Hardly for the first time, I’d imagine._

Finally, working as a temp means those at her work tend to give up any arguments early. The manager walks away, huffy and probably ruminating on the bitch he spoke to. Whatever, more time for the overpriced bread. 

When she gets to the cart, she pulls her phone out to briefly read Sylvain’s ten-thousand IQ Thanos analogy. 

_So, six gems. All through her life. Not all of them overlap but they’re all important. It’s the five she lost, then you. You’re the only one left. Her garnet. Even if losing the other five hurts, she always has you, garnet. And whatever you tell her, she treasures forever like actual gems._

_Even if you chicken out and don’t tell her ever, you should at least know that from where I stand, she trusts you. I can see that, and I doubt that I’m alone._

Edelgard is dismayed to admit that he has a point.

_I’ll think about that. Gotta get back to work though. Manager’s a prick._

__

_He’s not worth the jail time, but it is a nice thought. Talk to you later, Sylvain._

_You too, princess._

Edelgard sighs, not quite believing that she already regrets not talking further with Sylvain. She pockets her phone then faces the bread. It’s not that daunting, save for one box sticking out of the far end that looks heavy- and even then, she can just lower it to the ground. 

“Easy enough, really,” says the fool.

She picks the loaves up and sorts them correctly. Just because she’s a temp and can do a shit job doesn’t mean that she’s going to and leave this mess to an actual employee here who will face consequences from that shithead. Besides, when she tries, she puts away the loaves quite efficiently if she does say so herself. 

That leaves the box. It should open easily from the top, then she can pull them out a loaf or two at a time. One look at it informs her that it was put in upside-down, tape all along the crack. She wasn't given a knife by the manager, _of course,_ but once she gets this done, she can basically breeze to the end of her shift, and getting the hell out of here _is_ her end goal. 

Edelgard takes a deep breath, cracks her knuckles, and goes for it. She doesn’t like crazy physical jobs, but a task every now and again… like it or not, that’s a fair trade. It’s just that the box is jammed into the front half of the cart so hard that she can't even flip it over. 

And the more she pulls on it, the more she strains so hard she feels like she's gonna lose an arm. So, without thinking, she puts a foot on the bottom of the basket.

That’s what does her in. 

  
  


**You have my heart so don't hurt me**

Lysithea was next. Edelgard was fortunate enough to see it coming- not that it helped her cope, but it let her know to draw. She'd often take her sketchpad with her when she visited the hospital and hospice. Sometimes Lys would talk, addressing the horrors of her illness like minor annoyances. Sometimes it would be silent, the radio all that spoke, dialed into some grunge/alternative station. The only noise would be Lysithea humming along to _Linger_ or _Come To My Window_ or _Black Hole Sun._

Edelgard finished the sketch a few weeks before she died. Lysithea was in awe, but at that point beyond speaking _,_ so she motioned for Edelgard to come to her. They shared a brief weak echo of a kiss of which Edelgard still feels reverberation. Choked, she told Lysithea she loved her. Even at full health, Lys had never shone so brightly. 

When she was so far gone that she was comatose, Edelgard visited her one more time. She looked so sickly, so corrupted, so ragged, but Edelgard reminded herself that, for at least one more night, Lysithea was in that shell.

She didn't turn the radio on. Couldn't. She sang one song completely a cappella, _Dreams_ by the Cranberries. She didn't want to cry while singing it, but as soon as she crooned the last _aaaaah,_ she broke down and sobbed, telling Lysithea how much Edelgard loved her and how much she needed to stay alive. 

It didn't work.

Maybe it's irrational to lose trust over something as inevitable as death, but something in Edelgard shattered the day that Lysithea died.

**~**

Edelgard hears Annette’s footsteps before she sees her in all of her Napoleonic wrath. “What were you _thinking?_ ” she shouts the second she enters the hospital room. 

“I was picking up a box,” Edelgard responds simply. She didn't lose an arm, thankfully. The reality of the matter involves trying so hard to pull it out of a jammed cart that she tore a few ligaments in her shoulders and the fall badly twisted her ankle. Something like that, at least. She doesn’t know exactly what that means medically like she did adjacent to her school days, but it both sounds and feels painful enough to have her stay motionless in bed. 

“You picking up a box caused all of this?” she asks, incredulous to a new level even for her. 

A little frustrated, a little weary, and very not in the mood, Edelgard responds "Annette, I am _old._ " 

Annette paces around the room to get some steam out. "Then _why_ did you take a job where you were carrying heavy things?" 

"That was the only heavy thing." Edelgard's getting frustrated. "Look, I'm already in a hospital bed. I know I made a misjudgment. I very much don't appreciate you reminding me, frankly." 

It goes silent. 

Edelgard immediately congratulates herself for ruining things. 

"Shit," Annette finally breathes while pacing in a figure eight. Then she sighs, coming to a halt. "Like, okay. I get it. But I just got the _shit_ scared out of me cause the nurse up front said you were _unconscious._ "

Edelgard's jaw drops just enough to be noticed. "She _what_?" She gestures to an IV in her arm. "The morphine?" 

Annette's eyes widen and her jaw drops to the floor. She looks up at the IV bag, then at Edelgard. " _That's it?!"_ she hisses. 

"I mean, it's the only thing that I'd imagine could cause unconsciousness, but I assure you that I did not enter that way." 

Annette blinks. Then, her face loses emotion. "I will be right back," she says as neutrally as she can. Before Edelgard can stop her, she's stormed out of the room.

She's far too tired to care.

Annette has tears in her eyes by the time Edelgard wakes up. Well, at least as far as she can tell: she's not all there. "That shit's strong," she mumbles as she wakes up. "Sorry, Annie. Um, why are you crying?" Then, after a second: "Are you crying?" 

Annette looks away, blushing. "Uh, well, I was. I was just trying not to do it when you were awake." 

"Oh, Annie. I'm so sorry." Edelgard beckons towards her, and Annette walks forward, taking deep breaths. "I didn't mean to scare you, dear." 

"Yeah, like…" Annette looks away. "I was just scared, and it was real easy to scare me. I'm glad everything is okay now." 

Edelgard looks at Annette, the love narrowing her eyes sending a thrill up and down her own spine. Yet she still cries, her lips still wobble, and she still sniffles. She looks relieved in a way that suggests her heart was unbroken for the first time in her life.

"Oh, darling… come here." 

Annette complies, holding Edelgard gingerly around the waist. "It's okay," she insists tearfully. "I just, like, know that people can go at any time and my mind twisted that into 'she just…'" She starts to choke up again. Edelgard rests her chin on Annie's hair. "A-and I got scared." 

Edelgard coos. It's all she can do. If not for the pulled muscles, she would hug Annette, touch her, pull her close, make promises that she couldn't possibly keep. Instead, she just repeats "I'm right here, Annette. Everything is alright" so much that even she starts to get conditioned to it.

Edelgard wants the world to be as lovely as she would make it for Annette. 

Things don't get better.

The second day, they're informed that she needs to have surgery on her ankle. Annette stayed over the night before and gives the doctor a scare when a blanket pile sighs heavily from the daybed. 

"This shouldn't be too bad," Edelgard tells Annette, looking like a kicked puppy. "Maybe surgery will help it." 

"I hope," Annette says, looking out the window. Edelgard can tell that she's not confident at all, which she supposes is fair. Just unwanted.

The next day is the surgery. Annette is awake before Edelgard is at five in the morning. It still hurts to move her arms but that will gradually improve over time. It's always Annette that hugs her, finding the balance between might and caution. Go figure she hugs well. 

"I'll be fine, Nettie," Edelgard says with a dazed smile- she's not used to being up this early. 

Annette giggles. She seems twenty again at this moment. "Nettie, huh?" 

Edie nods.

"That's cute, Edie-bean. I'm not used to you being so sweet and goofy." 

Edie blushes. "Well… stick around, okay?" 

Annette pulls away and smiles, but not without an amazed tweak to her face. "Good luck getting me to leave."

Edelgard is currently in the hospital being lifted to her gurney to the operating room, but the feeling of the air in sunrise, the cricket's song, waking birds, the love in her heart… it all seems like a better Edelgard than she is. A better world than she lives in. A timeline she can make right. 

She leans up ever-so-slightly and kisses Annette's nose, hoping it's playful enough not to betray the longing in her heart. How she wishes she could do this every day, waking up in bed, listening to birdsongs from a mile or minute away, the sun pushing through stubborn shadows, the scent of dissipating twilight blanketing the air. She would turn over and see Annette in the space next to her. They'd kiss just once and Edelgard would smile, so flustered in a way that she'd allow. _Good morning, Nettie._

She's had twenty-five years to think about it. Drift off to it before she sleeps. Wake up disappointed. But she at least can treasure how it feels.

She can treasure this one kiss.

"I'll be fine," she quietly ensures a quaintly surprised Annette. "I promise."

"I believe you," Annette says with the smile that is so uniquely her. Edelgard reckons she's going to believe her because she can barely believe it at all. 

Before she can say anything else, she's starting to be wheeled away. She looks at Annette the entire time. She waves. Edelgard smiles back.

**Silence is the loudest parting word you never say**

Constance deserved so much better than she got.

Edelgard has never been very intimidated by people who are arrogant or loud and quickly became Constance's persistent, nosy friend in Garreg Mach. Constance was intentionally hard to deal with at first until Edelgard snapped in the opposite way than she expected. _Shout at me all you want, mock me and belittle my trauma, get physical if you must, but there is no chance that I'm going to simply roll over and give up on you, so I'm afraid that if you were hoping to force me out, you'll have to try something else._

From the moment between her breaking down and apologizing and a few months after Edelgard's 21st, the two were close friends. It didn't take long; the only way such an ultimatum would work is if they were truly similar, after all.

Constance was terrified of making friends she'd lose. Edelgard was terrified of the same. They talked about house fires and dead fathers, hospital stays and empty hallways, loss and starting again. 

Neither said how much they loved each other, but when Constance moved to Northwestern Faerghus with her secretly loving wife Hapi, Edelgard wishes she had. She kept daring herself to say something for the next few years over every phone call up to the disappearance. 

Denial still plays strongly in Edelgard's mind about it. To this day, she has never drawn Constance. To draw her would be to admit that she's dead. Or perhaps it's proof that she wants to move on in a world where she's not waiting for her ghost to return, but can't stop waiting to see if it does.

~

She's back home in a week, looking out the window. She tries not to get too down about it- the cast, the pain, the barely-useful arms- but it all exhausts her. Especially the words "eight to ten weeks" and "you don't need a wheelchair, thankfully, but" and "due to your age your arms might not work as well as they did before" and especially "you'll probably need a cane and to be careful when you walk even after this gets better".

She flips through television shows. When she gets bored of that, she listens to music- she's never going to get used to _telling_ her music to play, no matter how many times Cyril and Ashe's kid explains things to her. When she gets bored of that, she chats up Sylvain. She only put it off because she thought he was going to tease her for breaking her ankle, but maybe something in her message made him think twice because he says _Oh, yeah I was seriously worried. When do you get back in action?_

Edelgard isn't sure how to respond to that.

_Sylvain, if you ask me one more time if you’re boring me, I WILL leave._

_Okay, fine, I get it. I just feel like I’m talking your ear off._

_Given the subject matter, it’s perfectly fine. You are nervous and this is a subject matter that, quite frankly, you_ should _be nervous about. Ingrid has been your best friend for decades. From experience, I_ know _that means she’s seen you be an absolute prick._

_Oof. You don’t mince words, do you?_

_Frankly, the bigger surprise is that I care._

_Aww, you do?_

_That’s actually way sweeter than I expected._

“Than I expected.” He’s so lucky that she will ignore that.

_It’s not exactly news, Sylvain. Befriending you this long has made me proud of the man you’ve become. Ingrid knows you more intimately than I for better and, I presume, worse, so there’s a lot that she would have to consider. Still, I don’t think your odds are nearly as low as you claim._

_;_;_

_What is that face for? You know that I love you, Sylvain._

She almost adds “against my better judgment” but the moment feels too fragile for a joke. Honestly, considering how she treats him, if he didn't love her in return it would make more sense.

_It’s just nice to hear, haha. I’ve been friends with Ingrid a long time and I’ve loved her for ages, but you’re right. She’s seen me at my worst and you absolutely know I’ve been a douchebag a lot of times. If I were to ask her to be in a relationship with me- at all- I couldn’t promise her I’d be better. She has DEMONSTRABLY seen me not be better for thirty years. Even if she got with me, how do I not know she didn’t just give in?_

It is rather distressing how alike they sound, right down to the self-loathing and early surrender.

 _On a base level, Ingrid loves you at least as a friend. Even you can’t deny that. She’s been through a lot of shit but she is also one of the absolute most_ **_BULLHEADED_ ** _women I’ve ever met. If she does not want to be with you, she won’t be._

_I’ve not been around Ingrid too much but if you ask me the stick up her ass gives me sympathy pains. Yet when she talks about you, she’s as loose as she’s ever been. Whether it’s charmed or angered, I can commend you for having a way with her no one else has._

_“BULLHEADED” that’s how I’d describe you lmao_

_“The stick up her ass” oh sothis she’s YOU_

So this is her reward for trying to redeem the irredeemable. A lesson not to mess with the Goddess’ natural order.

_In that case, I am ever the grateful one that you have never tried anything on me. I am clearly your type._

_Look I know sexuality is fluid but if you ever start leaning masc YOU let ME know don’t just let me assume._

_I’ll keep that in mind._

_Still, do not think that Ingrid is set against you. I am proof that even if you are an asshole, you can still be loved. Ingrid has not disproved that theory._

_You better be calling ME the asshole that sentence doesn’t make sense._

_(👍 Edelgard Dominic has reacted)_

_LMAO_

_But thanks. How are things going with Annette?_

Cichol, that bastard snuck it in.

_They are going at the speed of a hobble, which I also am at because I hobbled my leg._

_Okay okay lmao I get it. Just don’t let it fizzle again. You got nothing in your way, so go for it!_

_I will try when I am stable, but honestly, I haven’t a clue as to what to do._

_Oh DAMN, that better change quick._

Edelgard pinches her nose at such a sterling piece of advice.

_My dear friend, I have somehow figured that to be the case._

  
  


Throughout the first week alone Edelgard misses the hell out of Annette, and it makes her heart hammer, knowing that their last interaction was a kiss that makes Edie fall into a spell at the thought. She hasn't had many kisses before aside from her ex, the one woman she married. She didn't date anyone else long-term, and few shared her feelings. It's very lonely sometimes, to have lost confidence in yourself as a romantic partner yet still crave what you don't deserve. 

Annette comes over on the weekend apologizing for being so swarmed that week that she didn't visit Edelgard. Edelgard commends her again for taking on a full workload again, even though, as Annette points out with a giggle, she did last week.

Edelgard blushes. "Ah. Pardon, my brain is weak and my mouth brings that fact to light." 

Annette giggles as she always does. "It's a snitch, isn't it?" She plops on the couch next to her and tentatively puts her hand around Edie's neck. 

"You may _not_ choke me," Edelgard jokes, even though Annette's approximate distance to her hastens her breath the slightest touch. 

"Oh, you _know_ that's not what I meant!" Annette huffs, arms crossed and face bright red. Edelgard knows that she'd never hurt her, but it's irresistible to tease her at times. She's still so over-expressive that even provoking a widened eye feels like a small victory. 

"Of course," she confirms. "I apologize for teasing you." 

" _Sure._ You're not sorry at all!" 

"Not overly, which is why I apologized rather than saying that _I_ am sorry." 

Annette sighs. "Mindgames." 

Edelgard chuckles, happy to have won. "As it is…" She takes a moment to feel her body. It turns out that it is not fun. "Ah, pity. My shoulders aren't feeling great at the moment. I'd rather you not touch them.

Annette _aww_ s. "Aw, you really _did_ bang them up, didn't you?" 

Edelgard shakes her head. "Frankly, I think my cause of injury is that I am nearly fifty years old." 

Annette snorts. "Okay, you can say that but, like, I'm still together! Physically. Emotionally I'm a frickin' hurricane." She's got another thing coming if she doesn't think Edelgard can't hear the sadness in her voice. "But that's still less a _me_ thing because of so many reasons." 

She decides to distract Annette from her sorrows. "Every time you use the word _frickin',_ I worry that you're a ghost that died in the mid-nineties that I'm deluded into thinking is my still-alive friend." 

Annette's eyes widen. Laughing in pure shock: "Oh my Goddess, Edie!" she says, lightly pinching her cheek. "Like, I know that I still look as fabulously young as I did back then but I'm gonna hope that I'm alive!"

Edelgard wishes her arm felt well enough to ruffle her hair. Her gray sprigs and wrinkles are so charming. "I'm going to hope so too, Annette." 

" _Nettie,_ " Annette corrects, sounding pleasantly tired. 

"Nettie," Edelgard repeats much the same way, hoping her blush is not visible.

With an _oopsie-daisy_ laugh, Annette resumes scrolling through the channels. In about two minutes, she finds a mystery movie that Edelgard remembered as quite macabre in a fun way. She doesn’t say anything, but she can feel Annette’s eyes on her cheek and hear her giggle as she turns it on. Edelgard beams. Curse her stupid pride and sense of selflessness, but thank Annette for reading her.

When the movie starts with an abrupt shot of a Tudor style house viewed under a dead tree that a dog is sprinting in front of, Annette lies down on Edelgard’s lap, staring ahead at the movie. Edelgard doesn’t reckon that she fully sees a shot of the movie until the maid stumbles upon the dead body because she keeps looking down at Annette, utterly dumbstruck. At the very least, the maid only fumbles the tray rather than dropping it, which is somewhat more realistic. At the very least, the observation keeps her mind busy.

Annette giggles. “Interesting!”

Luckily, Edelgard would need the world to collapse to not have the wherewithal to tease. “Has anyone before told you how odd it is that you giggle at murders in such a way?”

Annette nods solemnly. Edelgard realizes too late that she put her foot in her mouth. Still, the younger woman says “Oh, too many people, Edie. Too many people.”

Edelgard chuckles. “At least I’m not alone in that.”

Annette playfully slaps her lap, and then they’re quiet for the most part. Annette tends to laugh louder and point out interesting things in the movie, but Edelgard appreciates these things. She also got to feel smart for guessing the killer while Annette was way off. “We’re _supposed_ to think it’s him!” she claims. “That’s why I didn’t expect it to be!”

“Their plot twist was a complete three-sixty,” she responds so she can feel good about herself. 

Annette acquiesces with a giggle. “I’ll say.” Her giggle is the one part of her that Edelgard cannot help but find so young.

As the movie ends with the family’s maid standing on the balcony of the house, master of all, Edelgard expects that after the short round of applause Annette will sit back up, but she stays, lying on the couch with her head on Edelgard's lap.

"D'ya mind?" Annette's voice is a wisp carried by wind.

"Not at all," Edelgard whispers just as quietly. _I never minded._

So they don't move. Soon, they're napping. Edelgard doesn't dream about her, but there is a comfortable feeling in her waist area. 

Eventually, they wake. The Great Tree Moon is probably on the edge of the horizon. They wait for it to rise into the sky even as they can't see it, Edelgard absently playing with Annette's hair and Annette holding Edie's other hand with both of hers, resting it on her abdomen. 

Annette yawns so loudly that the signal is unmissable. She lifts herself off with an apologetic grunt, standing above where she once sat. Edelgard is about to get up when Annie puts a hand up. "No no no," she orders. "You're not putting any pressure on your foot, missy." 

A bossy Annette is an exceptionally attractive Annette, not that Edelgard would let her know that even if they _were_ together. "Okay," she acquiesces. "Just grant me a hug on the way out, okay?" 

"Duh." Annette slips on her coat and shoes, clumsily efficient as ever. Edelgard can hear rain through her window and wishes that she could take Annette home, but alas, she is used to taking the bus, at least. 

Annette puts her hood on, then looks at Edelgard and takes it off with a conspicuous "oop!" Edelgard shakes her head, an adoring captive of Annette but preferably in not an overreaching way. She spreads her arms apart gingerly, feeling sensitive pain in her shoulders and not overly caring. Annette is in them shortly and though Edelgard cannot hold her very tightly, she feels and hears Annette crawl into a cranny of her shoulder by her neck and holds her secure with her chin gingerly resting on her neck.

They stay like this for so long that Edelgard honestly struggles to see it as platonic. It's a feeling that she never felt throughout her marriage. 

Eventually Annette moves away, arms retreating to her sides. She gives Edelgard a look that she can't quite discern; slightly spaced but very conflicted, her brow furrowing over glazed eyes. Then she snaps awake. "Crap! Uhm, sorry. Space Cadet Annie, you know how it is." 

Edelgard nods with a sort of smile she herself cannot place as she looks at Annette's beauty and feels whole. "Maybe so," she responds to a concept. To Annette, she says "Take care, Nettie." Then, as she's trained herself to say "I look forward to seeing you soon." 

She lights up specifically at the nickname. "Oh, you too, Edie-bean! It'll be great, I promise!" 

"I know."

Edelgard cannot wave her goodbye without the echoes of sadness in her heart. Somehow, this goodbye feeling so big, the prospect of the dream of her heart feeling tangible, makes this parting hurt worse rather than heal.

Then, to her surprise and no prior notice, Annette returns the next day. Her raincoat is wet enough to hang on a hook in the canopy instead of making it inside. The rest of her glistens as well, shining like a diamond. 

"Sorry this is so sudden!"

Edelgard couldn't care less.

**Samskeyti**

Edelgard was classmates with Bernadetta. Bernadetta… it seems sad and harsh to say, but she seemed destined for her fate and it shook Edelgard from their first interaction. She made sure to be as patient as she could with her even when youth made it hard. When they grew older, they stayed friends through their separate lives until she married, making it harder. Still, she wrote to Bernadetta every month. Every letter started with _I hope this letter finds you well_ and ended with _know that, while I am not the best at showing it, you are never far from my heart._

Bernadetta fell in love with Annette; to Edelgard's shock, Annette fell back. Edelgard had been married for a few years by now, but she still felt a bit pained for reasons she could barely describe. Still, she was so happy for Bernadetta, so happy that Annette gave her love, and so happy she got to love Annette back.

She knew Bernadetta from years sitting adjacent to her in class, the wild feltlike purple hair and wilder eyes. In her twenties, she constantly did her hair as smoothly and gleaming as possible. It took ages, but she faced her fears, she took action, and did her best to cage trauma. 

When she became part of an outdoors architecture group, she was the most stately and confident she'd ever be. Annette was the most proud. Edelgard just told Annette to remember how amazing her support is.

Unfortunately life was not perfect. When an economic downturn hit, the group was disbanded, leaving her with Annette and her trauma, the latter winning the fight. In her later life, her hair was less clean, her eyes less focused, and she reacted with fear at any frustration that Annette shared. 

She would find out later that Bernadetta's father had abused her for her childhood. _I almost dug the bastard up and killed him again,_ she told Edelgard in the coldest tone she's heard from a human being, much less literal sunshine. 

Eventually it was just too much. She went out for some air one evening when the three ate together and never came back home.

_I still get a little paranoid when someone tells me they love me before they leave._

Edelgard took complete control of the funeral planning with such a fiery determination that it was clear that she was desperate not to feel, to not be a person just for a little while. Annette was easily the most emotional she'd been at a funeral. Edelgard tried to keep a neutral front to hide her venomous hatred for Bernadetta's father and pure heartbreak at how everything turned out. She finds that hiding her feelings is a particular weakness that she's strong at. 

There's no one there to sing but from the jump Edelgard had a backup plan from a childhood where she was forced to learn piano. She picked a song from days spent alone, reflecting on her life, days where she needed comfort she couldn't expect from her wife. 

She gave _Samskeyti,_ the gift she was given, to the world. When the last dissociative presses of the keys faded away, she stepped down and went to her seat, crying for the first time since Bernadetta shut the door to her house and never opened it again.

_I don't know why I wasn't enough._ Annette cried in her arms for the third death in her life. _And I'm gonna be wondering that forever._

Mercedes was there as well and handled the conversation better, even though Annette stayed in Edelgard’s arms. Edie tried to chip in where she could, but she couldn't help how everything felt so far away from where it was, how she hadn't felt like an active participant in the world for so long. After the funeral, she cried alone for a few weeks after work, dried her eyes, and came home as performative as ever. 

After the divorce, years later, Annette and Edelgard talked to each other like they usually did. Annette was always Edelgard's special person; her spouse never got jealous or suspicious of her like she was with Bernadetta- in retrospect, barking up the wrong tree. 

It was so easy to talk to her except for that day. 

Annette's never going to sting less from the loss of Bernadetta. Hanneman faded. Her father felt inevitable. Bernadetta was so young, such a roller coaster of a girlfriend. She loved almost as hard as she feared, and through her father taught Annette the lesson that you can be repeatedly broken by someone after you think they're out of your life, until there is nothing left. 

Edelgard finally admitted to her in slow, jagged pieces that came out in rushed chunks. _When I was married, I… considered it._

_Oh._

_Yeah, I did._ Too often. She would rather downplay it. 

_When I was married, everything felt… static. The same. Inauthentic. Miserable. I hated it, but I was too scared to say anything to anyone. It… went away, but it took a lot of drastic decisions. But if I failed, I promise you that no one would be to blame. And I hope you know that it's the same case here._

_...okay._

Edelgard watches as her body language closes in, becomes defensive and tense, a barely hidden bear trap. It feels loveless. It's all her fault 

_Did I say anything wrong?_

_No! Nothing wrong! But…_ Annette just shook her head and they talked about her new boyfriend. Edelgard did her best to get back to normal, again not quite cognizant of the fact that she had much to mourn as well.

Bernadetta left Annette the house in the will she wrote. _I hope you know that this had nothing to do with you,_ she had confirmed. Annette's eyes were dead as she heard it read out. Meanwhile Edelgard sketched Bernie from her days as a professional. It was a better memory than who she became in her final years. 

Annette hung it by a tack in Bernadetta's house, looking for approval. Edelgard nodded, holding her shoulder. In her pocket was a bag of seeds that to this day she plants sparingly. _Take care of my baby,_ a note asked her. 

They sold the house and Annette moved back to Fhirdiad for a spell. The flowers Edelgard grew from the seed were the type of daffodils that bloomed near Annette's birthday. Those come with her gift every year. She never says where they came from, but the calm, respectful way Nettie takes them doesn't leave it to mystery. 

~

A very expensive Nikon camera hangs around Edelgard's neck, the strap secure even though she still shakes against her cane as she walks up the rocky pathway to the nature reserve she and Annette are visiting today. The Sealed Forest isn't anything special, but it's a nice forested area that feels shaded the whole way through.

It's coming up to two months since the initial injury so she's walking a tiny bit better than before, but she still isn't great. In the back of her mind, Edelgard wonders if her shoulder injuries will keep her from drawing properly, but seeing as she only draws for a memorial, she hopes that it is a while before she finds out. 

Annette holds the arm on her clumsier side while carrying a bag of things that _can't_ be light. Yet here she is asking "You okay, Edie-bean?" 

Edelgard smiles despite the discomfort. "I imagine that I should be." 

She raises an eyebrow. "Have you hiked a trail like this since you got injured?" 

"I, ah…" Edelgard shakes her head. 

Annette responds by tightening her grip as though arresting her for crimes against her own body. Edelgard can't help but smile at Annette's clear concern. It's touching, how she worries even still. Edelgard was forced to grow up faster than Annette and grow to be self-reliant earlier, and this also made her distant. Annette is forceful about helping her if she needs it- no matter what Edelgard says. It _could_ get a little overbearing because Annette is as overeager as she was as a teen, but Edelgard can't help but admire it. 

"Are you okay carrying the bag as well, Annette?" 

Annette responds with some harsh nonsensical phonics that communicate _drop it._

The picnic gets set up easily. Annette does most of it but Edelgard was able to badger her way into helping a little. She reminded her that she was not likely to fully recover and added "If this is how I'm going to be from now on, then as little as I can, I wish to help _._ " Annette sighed and made a scene but with how radiant Edie feels having done her part, maybe this is worth it. Who knows?

The picnic blanket looks comically oversized with both women sitting next to each other. Their legs touch but neither comment on it. Annette talks so fast that she couldn't if she wanted anyways. Maybe it's a little suspiciously fast, but Edelgard is so glad that she can talk about working at the school again. She's a gifted teacher. 

"I'm still not set up to go back in the classroom just yet," she says. "The profs wanna give me just a little more time because…" Her voice lowers. "Yeah. Of who it was. Uhm…" She swallows, and Edelgard wishes she could hold her again. "It's working out great though. Cyril, actually? _Hella_ sharp in the lab. I knew he was the hardest worker around but the dude doesn't give himself credit for his _smarts_ at all." She giggles so hard she almost falls over. "Like, I'm close friends with Ashe and I told Cyril 'if Ashe isn't giving you the respect for your 200 IQ, you deserve I'll call him now and yell at him!' And that's the first time he's ever been flustered in his life!" Annette cracks up, and Edelgard herself laughs at her chatter. It’s so nice that she is enjoying her life again.

In between stories about school (“you can imagine how entertaining my life is right now,” Edelgard half-joked) the two of them eat. Formal habits have long been ingrained in Edelgard, but Annette could care less and shows it. At least she keeps it on the blanket- crumbs and all- a nice, easy containment for garbage-clearing after. 

“You _have_ eaten before in your life, yes?” Edelgard asks coyly, making sure she has her trash together. 

The last of her food in her mouth, she fires back “Uh-huh, what’s it to you?”

Edelgard is the one to sputter. “Annette, have you at all matured since school?”

“Obviously, genius! The gray hair didn't give it away?"

“You have grown, yes. The question is, have you matured?”

Annette tosses an orange at her, like a mature woman would. “Here, maybe an orange would make you a little bit less of a _bi-yatch!_ ”

“So that’s a no, then.”

Annette gives it up with a laugh. “Definitely a no.” 

Edelgard puts the tangerine- not orange- in her blazer and runs a finger through loose strands of Annette's hair. “Might be on to something, though. If anything puts me in a better mood, it’s something orange.”

“Good, it wa- _wait.”_ By the time Annette gets it, Edelgard is starting to walk away, camera in hand. She doesn’t look back as she turns it on.

It is… difficult. 

Photography is something that Edelgard’s skill is likely behind what it should be. She’s done so on occasion and she knows what a good photo looks like, in general, but it is hard to replicate. The fact that she is unsteady on her feet makes it more difficult, as does the fact that her shoulders require more forgiving angles to operate as shoulders should.

She tries, she certainly does. She would not be a Hresvelg if she simply gave up. Still, it is hard to hold still and shoot, especially if she puts on a timer. She will shake and stumble, leaving the shot a blur or a mess that could perhaps be used in an avant-garde way if she was any good at _that._ When she turns the timer off, however, the pictures snap too fast before she can best prepare them. The times in between do not fare much better, and she leaves the attempt saddened. 

She’s too much of a perfectionist, and she doesn’t like that she can't put on her game face. _At least it'll come back when I recover._

A few steps later is when she remembers that she's not going to recover all the way. 

She sighs and lets her body go slack, abruptly leaning against a tree and using the cane to carefully lower her down. She clears her throat and closes her eyes. She's been through far too much to be upset over this, but she used to be… not necessarily great, but functional at least. She hates how even now it's a struggle to stand, to flex, to _lift._ How much _better_ will _better_ be?What won't she be able to do? Goddess, she was not even five years ago in possession of a law firm, stunningly able-bodied, and motivated to pursue every errant fantasy she had. Now it's a struggle to take a decent photograph. 

What a shame. She hasn't died, but has she lost?

She feels someone sit next to her. Instantly, Edelgard recognizes who, but they're the only two in the forest so no points there. "Edie-bean?" she asks in a sweet singsong. 

She smiles a tad. "Hey yourself, Nettie. I don't see how you found your way out here." 

She snorts. "Looking for _you,_ dummy." It's amazing how Annette's shrug-worthy attempts at insults sound like compliments. Edelgard just smiles wider. Annette obligingly looks at the camera and asks "you get anything good, babe?" 

Then the smile fades and Edelgard sighs, head in her hands. When she shakes her head, she feels disappointment in herself. "I'm sorry," she absently mumbles. 

"Uhm," Annette asks. "Toward whom?" 

"Oh, dammit," Edelgard responds joylessly. Then she clears her throat. No need to be rude to her because you're bad at something. She shakes her head. "No, that's a valid question, Annette. I'm not sure what I'm apologizing for. Not to you, as you don't have a stake in the turnout. It could be me, but frankly I'm too annoyed with my lacking physical ability to apologize." 

"You _did_ injure yourself something fierce," Annette reminds her.

"Yes, but I _should_ be better by now, correct? I'd certainly like to be." She pouts into her lap. "I'm feeling foolhardy for trying to act like I am." 

"Yeah," Annette agrees, "because you're injured. And sorry to blow your mind, hon, but… we're old! Boosh." She doesn't even mime the explosion. "You say it more than I do." 

"I know that we're forty-seven, Annette, but I'm still very disappointed in myself. I enjoy- no, I need to prove that there are things that I can still do and-" 

"You need to?" 

Annette tries not to sound incredulous, but she holds an arm to the tree that they both are resting against, looking at Edelgard with heightened curiosity. "Edelgard, the world's not going to stop and stare at you. I certainly don't think less of you at all, if that helps." A lot, just not enough. "I've always wanted to be your friend for life, you know. And when I accepted, you know, what that meant, it meant that, yeah, we're gonna get old and our bodies will suck a lot worse than they did in school. That's just how life is, Edie-bean." 

Edelgard swallows, taking her hands and holding back her tears. "I'm really touched," she swears. "I am. You always know how to make me feel okay. It's just…" She struggles to find words, internally glad that Annette bade her time. For a while, she'd interject with the positive, making it hard for Edelgard to bleed out the poison in her veins. 

"Think that's what I always knew, Nettie," she admits. "Always do my best. Never stop. Do it not just for me, but what I represent." She unconsciously pats down the jacket on her waist. "Who I represent." 

Annette's eyes widen with recognition. " _Oh._ " Then with a shaky sigh: "Darling… you're not really letting yourself rest, you know?"

Edelgard shrugs, tears on the edge of her eyes. "Mean it's hard to," she admits. "Don't wanna let anyone down." 

Annette sighs, leaning against Edelgard. "History wasn't your thing, I don't think-" Edelgard nods in affirmation, trying not to wrap her arms around her unofficial little spoon and zone out. "But I took a few semesters because, well, I'm a nerd and a sucker and if that's news to you, maybe your memory's going too." 

Edelgard titters. "Give it time."

Annette gently pushes her by her stomach. "Anyway, we had a term about the Great Fodlan War. Uhm, despite the name, _not_ super-neat as far as wars go." 

Edelgard nods. "I was named after the losing Emperor." 

Annette beams. "You're a winner to me, Edie-bean." Edie beams, blushing. "But yeah, the thing I mean to get to is King Dimitri. Like the poor dude in my class." Edelgard nods solemnly. "You know that historians never knew his name until they dug up a general's letters in Duscur in the eighteen hundreds?" 

Edelgard shakes her head. "That's fascinating. There was a third ruler in between Adrestia and the rest of Fodlan?" 

Annette nods eagerly. "That's the thing. Until then, he was only rumored to exist. But through the letters, we learned that he was exiled by Adrestia's allies. He kept hallucinating that his allies that died during that whole fiasco were ordering him to get revenge. You know, kill the Emperor. Not even sure why, honestly. But he and a small battalion made a last stand against Adrestia during a fight they were already waging in Gronder against the Church's army."

Edelgard hums. "Ah yes, it echoed the battle of the Battle of the Eagle and Lion long before that."

"Yeah, but see, that's the thing. Until we got the letters from Duscur no one knew the deposed king had an insurrectionist army he was leading. They interfered with the fight and were all cut down within minutes. King Dimitri went straight for Emperor Edelgard and was killed by ten soldiers like a wild animal before the two forces engaged into legitimate warfare." 

"...Goddess forsake us." Edelgard has no clue how the hell Annette just says all that with a straight face.

Annette nods firmly. "That was King Dimitri. So hell bent on succeeding that he and his army was wiped from history in fifteen minutes."

Edelgard contemplates that lesson, a stony look across her visage. "I believe that could teach a lesson in a scenario where I was forcing myself into a war between two other parties-" 

Annette gently flicks her cheek. "Don't be a doofus, Edie. What I'm saying is this dude gave his life because he felt he owed it to spirits to do what they wanted, but it's like the pirates say: dead folks tell no tales. He might have thought they told him, but they were echoes of his own mind. Maybe the pressure you feel from them is all internal. Maybe it's you not sure of what you need and you gotta question _yourself_ on what you want."

She places her fingers into Edie's open palm. "Edie, I…" She starts, then clears her throat. "We've seen a lot. We've hurt a lot. We've loved a lot." At that, Edelgard nods. "But the thing is, you're _wonderful,_ and you're very skilled. I don't want you to waste that living for what's not there. I want you to live for you." 

Edelgard finally slips their fingers together. "I've not missed how solemn you've gotten, Nettie." 

Annette gives a sad smile. "Yeah, I mean maybe. Think I just… we've been through so much, together and apart. Maybe living for those you've lost is what you want, but it means we miss out on who you are. I… don't want that." 

Every single word Annette said to her was as fast paced and borderline missable as usual… except those last four. The power within them… it feels eternal. She can still hear them now. She might remember them even as a dying woman with few memories left, though that might just be wishful thinking. She just always wants to remember Annette, from sixteen to ninety-six. 

She doesn't realize her eyes are closed until they open and Annette looks back at her like she's done it only so often due to restraint. "Hey," she says, waving awkwardly before looking at the path again. 

"I'm glad we had this talk," Edelgard admits. "It was… comforting." Annette beams without looking back. "And though I can't guarantee the future, I promise that your words have fallen on listening ears." 

Annette coos. "Thanks, beeb." 

They don't say much else, just relax in their spot under the tree. They're approximately the same height and yet Annette always seems to have much more faith in Edelgard's leg strength than shopping carts of bread do. She's easier to hold as she rests her legs atop Edelgard's, snuggling into her neck. 

"This okay?" she asks. 

"More than okay." _It's always been okay._

Annette blushes. "I- I mean…" She surrenders with a smile, closing her eyes and taking her place around Edelgard's throat, a coil Edelgard could stand to feel until she dies. "Good." 

They're asleep before they know it and awake before Edelgard wishes they were. 

Edelgard is too happy to let Annette borrow her camera, only giving an obligatory "please be careful, dear." Annette thanks her far more than she deserves and runs off trying her best to be a photographer. 

Tired still, Edelgard succumbs to the shade of the tree cradling her disjointed body, happy to watch Annette apply her infamously low attention span to the camera. She tries to think and remembers that, yes, she absolutely _did_ take the timer off. What serendipity. 

She pulls her phone out of her pocket to check the weather. It'll stay this mild and sunny all day, pleasing her. She goes to put it away when she sees Annette with her hands up, trying to coax a nesting bird onto her arm. The bird doesn't comply, but Edie's smile is lovesick. Some days it feels like Annette hasn't changed at all. She has; she's more patient, more attuned into the pace of others, and more driven to listen and comfort rather than trying to win by guessing the right solution. The anything-is-possible, giddily optimistic side of her, however, has never left her. Edelgard doesn't get how that is possible, but she is so beautiful. 

Edelgard turns the phone's camera on- this is _far_ easier than the bulky Nikon- and aims the lens at Annette. She snaps and realizes she forgot to turn the lens around, snapping an unprepared selfie of herself. She sighs and, cursing her age, finds the button to change lenses. The phone fills top to bottom with the image of Annie and the Nikon by the tree, leaning her stomach against a branch to reach for the birdie, pulling her shirt up just past her belly button. Without thinking, Edelgard snaps it. It's not perfect, so she snaps a few more until she has a sample size.

She looks through them. They all look similar, but one captures every element she wants without being blurry. In fact, it looks far livelier than her drawings. Then again, maybe her drawings just represent death too much. She can't decide and instead just deletes the bad pictures until she hits the most recent one of someone else…

Herself, looking at an imperfect angle out in the distance, smitten smile and blush on her cheeks. Her full chin isn't in frame, and she looks like a toddler photographed herself by mistake. Still, she keeps it. 

If nothing else, it's honest 

Annette drives Edelgard's car back home after she sees how tired she is. Edie agrees and spends the whole time thinking of the walk around the entrance area. In one hand the cane, in the other, Annette's arm. She can't remember a single thing she said about the flowers- just that she's given botany lectures before- but she remembers how close Annette was. How fresh she smelled. How even during her school days she never yearned for anyone so childishly. 

"Seiros help me," she mumbles. 

"Hmm?"

"Ah, nothing."

The car heads to Annette's house, since she was the passenger. Edelgard watches the road the entire way there, then steals little glances at Annette, silently driving. There's an inner compulsion to make these sights memories and make those memories eternal. Edelgard doesn't know how, but she will.

They arrive at Annette's place. Annette goes to leave the car, very tellingly not saying goodbye. Edelgard looks in the backseat and sees a lavender blanket cover something very poorly. It was probably not the brightest move to keep these in the car all day, but the sunroof had to have helped a little. 

She meets with Annette at the front of the car. She sees the vase in Edelgard's hands and smiles a very small, sweet smile that says a lot in how little it says.

Edelgard neither looks nor acts it, but she is quite the romantic at heart, and little does she find more romantic than scarcity, quiet, an unheard language creating tension between two bodies, a dead language that never dies. Maybe that is happening now. 

"Can't believe you remembered," Annette says quietly, looking at the vase then looking down. "It definitely didn't feel like my birthday, so I totally forgot." 

Edelgard could say a lot. It takes her a lot of restraint not to. Instead she just smiles so wide that the daffodils tickle her chin and says "Happy birthday, Nettie." 

**The sun will set for you**

Edelgard was classmates with Caspar. The story with him is simple because Caspar was simple. Growing up together was interesting because she knows _she_ has and decades later, he still never had. Still, even though she's been close enough to Annette to know that she has matured, she puts on a good effort to match the youthful chaos that she's attracted to. 

All the times that Annette told Edelgard _he better be careful before he gets himself killed_ had too many echoes of past loss to sound humored. They echo ironic loathsome little thoughts now. Caspar was the star of a movie where she knew that the main character was going to die, just not when nor how. 

_I still have nightmares,_ Annette admitted when she visited a few weeks ago. _Nightmares of falling, falling down into a canyon._ The loss hit Edelgard then and there, but she waited for her to leave before she cried. 

Neither of them know exactly what happened. The most vocal fight the two had ever gotten into was when they couldn't decide whether or not to look at the details. Annette refused to and Edelgard thought that it was the mature thing to do. She wishes she could forget all the things that they said.

That night, Edelgard sat on the computer to look it up but her mind took over. Imagined different ways he could have died, each more explicit than the last. Consumed with waking nightmares, no true recount would terrify her more, and yet she couldn't look, couldn't stop the panic. She called Annette and begged for forgiveness. The two were bawling apologies a minute later. 

Sometimes when she thinks of the canyon, she imagines that she'll see Caspar climb out, wondering why everyone has been so sad. It never happens. Even though Caspar's memorial wasn't a funeral, it never happens. Even though a semi-celebrity singer was the one to sing some cheesy hopeful seventies song that Edelgard dedicated herself to forgetting, it never happens. Even though any representative of Caspar never was buried in the ground or scattered to the wind, it never happens.

It never happens, Annette doesn't move or say a word all service, and Edelgard spends it doing her best to convert the photo of Caspar into a sketch.

After everyone leaves, the two of them say their goodbyes, Edelgard singing a few lyrics of a song that ends in bombast that never plays. The story ends with Annette, static and mourning at a celebration, the world forcing her to play the concerned mourning wife in Caspar's movie when she was so much more than that. 

If only she knew what a star she was to Edelgard.

The daffodils stay in the house, the vase placed on the kitchen counter dipped in fresh water, but the two women do not. Edelgard scoops up two bowls of ice cream after insisting that _she_ be the one to do it for Seiros' sake. "Reserve for us a couple of patio seats, will you?" 

"Definitely!" Then she's gone, and Edelgard spends her time inside trying to recenter the beating of her heart.

She takes the bowls and dips spoons into them. Then, for a little fun, she takes two strawberry daiquiri wine coolers from the fridge before walking outside. She sees Annette sitting on the edge of her patio over a couple of narrow steps. "You comin'?" 

Edelgard almost drops the bowls. She wants to suggest, verbally or not, the glass table on the porch. Instead, she takes the invitation and shares a seat just above the steps with Annie, for the first time thankful that she is very small. 

Annie accepts the ice cream bowl with a smile and scoots the drink to her left. "Thanks, honey."

Edelgard is having a _hell_ of a time tonight. "Oh, uhm, of course." 

They take a few bites. Edelgard is fond of the peace between them, both eating on their own as their bodies stay next to each other. She isn't really sure what she wants as far as whatever is between her and Annette. _Something_ feels like it is. She isn't sure if things are supposed to go this well- call it kismet or just natural- or if, at the very best, Edelgard's here when Annette's other lovers are not. 

Annette is first to finish her bowl, setting it just behind her to her left. Instead of picking up her cooler, she folds her hands in her lap and looks at Edelgard as she slowly nibbles at her ice cream. Feeling her gentle gaze, she looks Annette in the eye and says "apologies, Annette. Did you need anything?"

Annette looks down, blushing shyly at the wooden floor. "I, ah, had a question. It might be weird though, so if you don't want to answer it yet, it's okay. I was just, like, curious." 

Edelgard is naturally not the most revealing person in the world, but it's Annette's birthday. She should be receptive, at least. "Uhm, do go ahead and ask," she says. "I'll see if I have it in my heart to answer " 

"That sounds fair," Annette grants, chuckling awkwardly. "Just… don't get mad at me?" 

"Annette, do I ever get genuinely angry with you that often?" She notices Annette's case of nerves and takes her hand. "Fights happen, yes, but very infrequently and nothing permanently damaging. At least to me." Well, about Annie. Edelgard tends to hate _herself_ more but, you know, neither here nor there. 

"O-okay." Annette doesn't seem to calm down. "I just, like… I've been wondering for months and never knowing when to ask. I'm bad at asking for things in general, I just… need to know." 

_A few months ago._ Edelgard has two modes of thinking- lightning quick or witless. The first strikes here. To take the burden from Annette, she asks as calmly as possible "Dear, is this about Mercedes?"

Annette closes her eyes and leans her head down and away apologetically. It's answer enough, but she cautiously adds "a-and you, if possible."

Edelgard nods woodenly. "That's fair. I, ah…" She scratches behind her head. "It won't be my favorite conversation piece, but I think I owe it to you." She pulls the cap off via the metal handrail since she'd like to be a little faded as she talks about it. 

"Thanks, like…" Annette throws her hands in the air as she does when she's too tense. "She was one of my best friends for a long time. I just know with you, it was complicated. I never wanted to choose a side or act like I had the truth but… I really just have to know." Annette speaks like she may have accidentally left Edie to suffer for years and hates herself for it, which scares Edie even more.

She shudders, taking a larger sip than usual of her wine cooler. Annette opens hers and follows suit "Annette," she breathes, quieter than the nature of nighttime ahead of her. "I… I'm glad she treated you well. Truly. I just…" She thinks of how that sentence would go and stops, hand on her knee. 

Annette holds onto the shoulder of her arm. "Tell me," she whispers like her voice is weak as well. None of them seem to want to say what they are. "The truth. Edelgard, please." 

Edelgard folds her hands in front of her face. It is so terrifying to do that to someone's best friend. That's why whenever Annette skirted the conversation, Edelgard grew used to saying that she wasn't going to say anything negative about Mercedes, even if Mercedes was likely talking frankly to Annette. Yet Annette is still her friend. Maybe she won't be stealing the love she has for her best friend. Maybe someone can be good and bad at once. Maybe it's just none of her business anymore. 

Edelgard realizes she is crying only when Annette deigns to wipe her eyes. "It's okay," she responds when Edie looks over, but it isn't quite right because she's not wiping her own tears. She's leaving herself alone. She's being left alone.

"Okay," Edelgard whispers.

Annette brightens considerably even when she shouldn't. "I really appreciate it, Edie-bean." She slips one hand behind Edelgard's back, head lying where her shoulder meets her neck, ever the same. 

"Okay," Edelgard breathes again. She takes Annette's hand, for strength and as an apology. "Okay."

Then she looks down. Annette taps her shoulder, concerned.

"I don't know where to start." 

Mercedes will be someone forever complicated for Edelgard to describe. If she was ever to describe her until this moment, it was that she was a kind woman, it's a shame that things didn't work out, and she wishes she knew before Mercedes dragged her to worship for about five hundred Sundays. 

It was okay enough; Mercedes led the praise and worship department with the voice of the bird of paradise, but Edelgard could never process what was going on in the sermons. They were tales of faith meant to make one a better person, but honestly there are many ways to be a better person without being a fanatic. It didn't help that she was named after a scriptural villain who tried to kill the goddess' children, even if Mercedes was named after a powerful saint. It almost defined them. Mercedes never raised her voice when they fought, but Edelgard sure felt like a demonic queen when in her presence.

When she and Mercedes separated, she woke up early Sunday morning. Then, she remembered that she didn't have to attend Church that day. Not anymore. Her wife was gone.

She slept in until eleven in the morning and stayed in bed until noon. Slovenly, she woke up and ate a bowl of cereal. She left for the park shortly after and just sat on a bench by a walkway, watching birds hop on the ground looking for offerings before taking to the sky. The couples that passed looked very normally dressed. Some of them even showed skin. The space on the bench next to her felt empty, but she realized that it also did when Mercedes occupied the seat of the pew next to her. 

"I think that's when I first realized that, y'know…" Edelgard's words have been less guarded than the start as the feeling of liberation hit her heart. "Mercedes wasn't there." 

Annette is drying tears off of her face with a tissue, but her chin doesn't leave Edelgard's shoulder. "Wow," is all she says.

Edelgard nods. "I didn't realize how… well, how guarded I was. How I tried to prepare for her coming out of nowhere like a specter to castigate me on what I was doing. She didn't wake me up so abruptly and tell me that sleeping late was a bad habit. She didn't walk into the kitchen and tell me that she was disappointed that I skipped church for a belief I never invested in." She realizes that her voice is thinning, her breath barely there. "She didn't come into the park and…" She laughs. Or sobs. Either/or. Maybe both. "Tell me I should have bought bread for the birds." 

Annette hugs Edelgard sideways, nose on the base of her neck meeting her shoulder. 

"I feel bad for saying this, Annette, because she was your best friend. But when I realized we were really over, that she wasn't there anymore…" Edelgard can't help but sob again. Joy? Sorrow? Catharsis, probably. "I hadn't felt so happy since my twenty-first birthday. To… _breathe_ for the first time in a decade… I felt so wrong, but it felt good. More than good. Desperately necessary." Quietly: "I'm so sorry."

Annette shakes her head. Edelgard can still feel her breath on her skin. "Edie, don't apologize. You're not doing anything wrong." 

Edelgard folds her hands over her muzzle, her breath clammy. "It… feels wrong, I guess. To leave over that. I was always afraid to share how l felt. I knew that she'd show me I was wrong like she does so well… I hid until I couldn't. She always had the upper hand over me and I knew it." She throws her hands up. "She kind of terrified me, honestly. The only way I could win was to leave and… that had to look like a vastly better alternative before I took the risk."

Annette's quiet for a few seconds. Then, she croaks "Edie!" before finally the dam bursts. Edelgard's surprised as she often is when Annette cries, but it makes sense that she'd be hurt at how Edelgard thinks of her best friend, her recently deceased best friend. She was so gleeful when Edelgard proposed. _"My two besties are gonna spend their life together!" she cheered about the worst decisions of either of their lives._ Edelgard was happy that she was happy. Her only regret about the divorce was that it made Annette unhappy. If that wasn't telling...

"Edie, I'm so sorry that this…" 

Edelgard's jaw drops. "You're… sorry?" 

Annette nods through tears. "Yeah, I…" She clears her throat and takes some deep breaths and meanwhile all Edelgard can think is _she's sorry?_ "Whew," she says, breathing. "Okay, I'm sorry." With a shaky laugh: "I'm still as emotional as I was when I was a kiddo. Yeesh." 

Edelgard chuckles, astonished still. "Quite all right. I, ah, am not. No one in my family was, though." In retrospect, that sounds worse than she meant it to, but she doesn't correct it because maybe it needs to sound worse than her minimizing it. 

Annette just plays with Edelgard's pale hair like she's done all her life, ever since it had more color. "I'm just… knowing everything I do, and how both of you described it…" She pauses. "I don't want to feel ill about her. And, like, my own biases just… make it impossible to be too hurt. But I'm disappointed in her because… you deserve better, Edie."

Edie blinks. "I, uhm…" Now it's she who needs reassurance, though she loathes being obvious when fishing for compliments. "I've honestly been changed over time, but I don't know if it's someone who deserves better than a failed marriage."

Annette shakes her head. "Look, it not working out with her doesn't mark you for life. I've seen you at your best and your worst. You- I've never met someone more loving and passionate than you, even if you think you're good at hiding it." Edelgard chuckles, feeling sufficiently ribbed. "You're so much better than you think. And if I could just, like, say anything to you, it would be not to be afraid to go for what you want. You've never done that nearly as much as you should." 

Edelgard focuses on her. On the way she lies on her shoulder, tears in her eyes, smile tender, the traces of a giggle in the air when she says "well, while sober, anyway." Annette is forty-seven years old, and what they say about age and time is wrong. She's as beautiful as that day, when she was twenty.

She knows what she _wants_ to say. She just can't see a world where she does and Annette is okay with that. There's too much at stake. If she loses Annette, where does she go from there? She's gambled way too much of her life and happiness onto the girl. If she leaves, who can take her place?

Edelgard isn't half of what Nettie is. She truly isn't. 

"I've got to, well…" She scratches her neck. "I've either got to figure out what I want, or stop feeling a sense of conflict about it. I'm not sure which yet."

Annette nods. "I mean, yeah, it all takes time. I've seen that a lot. But if, like, I were to say one thing, it's to not be afraid to follow your heart."

Edelgard beams. Those words are familiar as can be to her, fresher than sunrise. "Annette, I'll try. It just has to, like… talk to me, dear. Guide me. Right now…" She clears her throat. "Right now, I have an idea of what I want. I just need a road there because I'm not sure if I'm only seeing what I want to see." 

Annette leans up and looks at her, eyes sympathetic and as vast as the oceans. "I understand that fear. But have faith, okay? Because I know how smart you are. You aren't foolish enough to desire anything you can't reach."

Annette always makes her feel so good about herself. Edelgard's arms still aren't the greatest, but she got this far, so with aching shoulders, she embraces Annette, who giggles. "Thanks, Nettie," she breathes. "And, uh… promise to stay with me until I can get it right?" 

"Have I gone anywhere _yet,_ Edie-bean?" 

She hasn't. 

Edelgard just needs her now more than ever.

Edelgard forces herself to breathe in and out when she gets home. She hasn't even left her car yet, but that's where she's at right now. She thinks that Annette knows how she feels. She thinks Annette wants her to say something. She just doesn't know if Annette wants her to let it go or she wants to know. Maybe she needs to know to decide. 

Falling for Annette was consistently different from when she fell for Mercedes. She was the calmest, most dedicated woman that Edelgard had ever met. It wasn't born from nothing. Her trying to save her brother Emile from drug addiction… it was beautiful. She never judged, never demanded, never condemned, not even in the subtle ways that stealth-bombed Edelgard's pride. She was as close to an actual saint as she would ever see. 

Annette isn't a concept. She's not a saint but she could be if she tried. She just shouldn't be. All of her traits, her best qualities and worst, don't feel like they're attached to her history like scrolls tied to the strings of balloons. They feel like they were at the end of the paths she set on, the ones that rose to the heavens or went up in flames. She is a mosaic of her own experiences. 

An Annette made from Annette, if you will.

(That's silly, but Annette's silly, so whatever.)

Edelgard leaves the car and walks to the house, no sound but the wind. She's still clueless where the path ends, but she knows where it starts. She hopes that Annette enjoys the gift voucher she snuck in the birthday card.

  
  


_For all the drinks you missed that night -E_

  
  


**Whatever you do, don't let go**

Edelgard never saw Dorothea's death coming. No one did. The woman was the goddess of everyone at school, so much so that many did not hear of Sothis before. Her hair cascaded in thick brown waves, her eyes took apart those who mocked her in emerald flames, and her lips moved so quickly that unless she was singing you could never fantasize about yours in between them. 

Edelgard has never been popular. Unlike her ancestor, she has no crown, no power, no title. If she was confident then, she isn't now. 

And yet… Dorothea made her feel special.

They spent the first year without Petra, so it felt like Dorothea was her own, somehow. Even as they met other people, even as they did different things than before, even as they grew up, Edelgard did not need anyone quite so much as the comfortable, honest, flirtatious, surprisingly foulmouthed Dorothea.

When Petra showed up, Dorothea found her special one, even if it took them the whole school year to figure it out. Edelgard tried not to be jealous of the stately, athletic transfer student, someone she knew she had no chance against. She accepted that, but it still hurt. Silly her; this is the year she met Annette and yet she _still_ didn't get it. Dorothea spent less time around her, wasn't as loose, wasn't as free. 

Edelgard brought it up. Unsurprisingly, it led to a blowout fight when Dorothea figured out Edelgard's crush. Still, if there's one thing that Edelgard can say about herself, it's that she's stubborn. She'd have handcuffed their wrists together, but full to bursting, she pulled Dorothea aside and fessed up to everything. How much of a crush she had. How much it hurt that Dorothea had moved on from her, the new sapphic toy a year below her she could exchange for a new one. How much Edelgard hated that she got jealous enough to let it eat at her. How much she just wanted to be Dorothea's friend.

She didn't finish with tears, but both left with them. They reached a middle ground- it was shaky at first to split her focus, but Dorothea had a best friend and girlfriend, one feeling okay with sending her off to Brigid with the other. They were rarely ever face-to-face except for reunions at Garreg Mach and Dorothea's wedding to Petra, where she all but told Edelgard that she was going to be the bridesmaid in a _far-too-passive_ tone. 

(The wedding gave her three panic attacks all before it even happened, Annette fusslessly helping talk her down every time.)

Still, they talked so often that they deferred to each other on almost every subject they didn't know. Edelgard loved being trusted. She felt like the grown person she was meant to be. She was necessary.

Dorothea's death just before forty was the type of cruelty that Edelgard _loathed_ the very idea of water over. She remembered Petra calling her and saying nothing. Edelgard called her name over and over. Upon threatening to hang up, she was interrupted by the only time Petra had ever sounded weak, saying _I am needing a second, please_ with the force of leaves against the wind. 

_No,_ Edelgard whispered. Then, as if begging the concept of loss, started to yell _no, no, no, no, no!_

_Mo ghra…_

Anyone who would sing at Dorothea's funeral would pale in comparison. Again broken out of emotion, Edie never could. She could barely speak. It was Petra, who sang an old Brigidian folk song and a song Edelgard never heard of that she sang perfectly a cappella, _Us Against The World._ Her voice was perfect. Her English was fantastic. The song fit so beautifully, hope and sorrow at once. It made Edelgard buy the whole album online sans the song actually about drowning. 

Dorothea was the easiest one for Edelgard to sketch. Her eulogy was in all the papers- _Fodlani Superstar Singer Dorothea Arnault Dead at 39._ Edelgard cut out an image and recreated it as best as she could for someone who could hardly stand to recognize that it was true. 

It's the one she's never looked at again. 

When Edelgard turned twenty-one, she was against her will dragged to a bar by a group of her friends that wished to celebrate. Well, the group included Sylvain, so maybe _acquaintances_ was a better word (she'd say to his face, never meaning it). She remembers them, many classmates older than her and those crafty or white enough to get in with Fake IDs. Sylvain, Hubert (naturally), Claude, Felix, Raphael, Caspar, Dimitri, Mercedes for some reason, Balthus, Hilda, Marianne, Hapi, Constance, and of course, Annette. Slowly over the evening, all of them got shitfaced except Marianne, Mercedes, and Annette. 

Oh, Annette. She didn't drink even with her fake ID, just sitting by Edelgard the whole night. Even while she was overloaded with drinks Sylvain promised to pay for, Annette was there with her making conversation and goading her to have a good time. 

Edelgard had gestured to her glass. "Why aren't _you?_ " Hah, like _she_ is. Beer is disgusting and she is never getting alcohol lighter on the color scale than tropical punch soda again for the rest of her life. 

Annette giggled. Edelgard thinks to this day that she looked absolutely tempting in her strapless red cocktail dress. "Just 'cause I'm not drinking doesn't mean I'm not having a good time." She tweaks a strand of Edelgard's hair and says "I'm having a good time because I'm with you." 

That's probably when Edelgard first fell in love with Annette. Such simple affirmation, after so long… she didn't get tired of Edie, she didn't snap over how Edie was, she didn't _hurt_ her, hurt her like nearly any of her friends had or would. She's opinionated, yeah, and they argue still every now and again, but the one thing that never lingers with Edelgard is hurt because Nettie's the only one that initiates conversations about it afterward. She's a good person, better than everyone else in that bar combined. 

At times she fell out. She could breathe. She could see Annette without this sickeningly sweet tincture making her heart race. Talk to her as a friend without the anxiety of mixing up her words or staring at her for too long. Be able to think about her without losing control, her mind betraying her with a scene and her body sending her hand on autopilot beneath her waist, quiet so Mercedes doesn't hear her. Without those things, she wasn't ashamed. She wasn't afraid.

Those times were never long enough.

Now, she doesn't feel that way. Hasn't in about a year. She doesn't need them to be in love anymore.

To her shame, she grew stronger when Mercedes passed, because it removed the weight holding Edelgard down and the balloon pulling Annette just out of reach. Maybe for a second, they can see eye-to-eye.

~

"You _do_ know your way there, right, Ed?"

No response. 

"Cichol help me. You _live_ here, right?" 

Edelgard laughs sarcastically. "Are you telling me that you can't recognize someone being so blasted they've forgotten a place they went two-and-a-half decades ago? I _know_ that's a lie." 

Sylvain chuckles over the phone. "I'm just saying, Ed, between you and me, you were the one I figured would know." 

"And between you, me, and Google, I know which of us would know." 

"Hah, good point."

"They do strike me occasionally." 

"Meet you there?" 

"Definitely.

"I'll be the designated driver. All good?"

"I trust you." 

She hears him chuckle, surprised. "Well, looks like we got it covered."

"Looks that way. I'll see you there, Sylv." 

"You too, Ed." 

Edelgard allows the phone to hang up as she continues to drive. She's either not very lost or incredibly lost, is how lost she is. Annette gave her the name and it sounded familiar enough, but now? Like hell she knows. She waits to reach a decent parking space before she pulls over and types the name of the bar into Google Maps.

(She probably should have done this from the start, but sue her for being nervous.)

Oh, thank the Goddess for once. It's not far. That's good- she knows that Annette invited Sylvain and wants to keep neither of the two waiting. She smiles as she sets the GPS and places the phone back in its perch in the car. The fact that, on her forty-eighth birthday, Edelgard's going back to the place where she fell in love with one of the guests… she tries to be hopeful. Maybe it means something. They've gravitated towards each other on a heightened scale lately. Maybe what she thought was impossible isn't all that crazy.

She can hope. 

She looks herself over in the reflection of the car before stepping in. Her suit is snazzy- maybe milk white for the top was a bad idea, but it looks cute with the bark-brown slacks- and her hair has retained its done-ness. She looks… well, like she's disguised herself as a man in order to put money down on a horse race in a year that doesn't have a two in it, but at least there's character in that. 

She takes a deep breath that comes out as five shallow ones and decides _hell with it_ and enters the bar of old. 

"Surprise!" 

"What the hell?"

Edelgard jumps back with a start. There's literally nothing about this that she understands. This hole-in-the-wall bar without a proper parking lot has embraced its oddness. It was built in a bought-out fast food restaurant but now, aside from some cut panels and an immediately visible bar space. It now embraces its odd pastel colors and cushioned booths, tables all in the center. In front of her are multiple people looking at her, some she hasn't seen long enough to recognize immediately until she sees Ingrid at Sylvain's side, fresher than she was at the funeral. "Ingrid?" she blurts. "Uhm, hi!" 

"Hello," she responds formally.

Sylvain gestures around the room. "Look around, girl!" 

Edelgard follows his finger like a cat after a treat only to see everyone- literally, all the surviving students and Byleth, who waves back at her. "My teacher!" she blurts, hands over her mouth. Well, that was… slightly embarrassing, but she can't take it back now. 

She scans the room again and sees a very surprising face sporting a burgundy ponytail and _killer_ suit. "Petra?!" she shouts. "Why'd you come from Brigid to see _me?_ "

Petra smiles, dazzling as ever. "Am I needing a reason past the fact that it is your birthday, Edelgard?" 

Edelgard's hand is on her heart, tears in her eyes. "I'm truly honored, Petra." She looks at the crowd of fifteen. Claude showing consistent pride and adoration of his Brigidan girlfriend. Ashe and Cyril without their young child for possibly the first time in years. Dedue towering over his spouse Leonie, who has all the emotion he tends to mute. Byleth and Flayn, ever the adults over the room despite Flayn once being one of the youngest decades before becoming engaged to her. Hapi halfheartedly smiling while Yuri holds her back with all the secrets of the world in his. Hilda cheering her heart out and Ferdinand clapping like Edelgard won a sports game. Sylvain beaming for once rather than smirking while Ingrid clears the distance between them without taking his hand. That just leaves- 

"Edie!" Annette calls, running to hug her side, drink in her hand. Edie's blindsided by the sight of her but returns the hug regardless, politely setting Annette's drink on the table behind her before embracing with both hands.

"Did you put this together?" Edie asks, trying not to get too lost in her embrace to forget about the others. 

"Me, Sylvain, and Ingrid a little," Annette clarifies. 

"A _little,_ " Ingrid emphasizes with a crooked grin. Sylvain chuckles. 

Edie nods with a smile. "Well, I thank you so deeply, Annette." Looking up, she adds "You as well, Sylvain. You too, Ingrid- a little if you so wish."

Ingrid chuckles. "Perfect." 

Edelgard looks at the crowd of smiling faces. "And I mean that towards you all. All of you honor me with your presence, whether I know you well or not. I, uh…" Words are hard to come by; tears are not. "I didn't wake up expecting a privilege as strong as this, but I'll never forget it." 

"Course, Edelgard!" Claude calls, patch over an eye. "You deserve this!" 

Annette separates from her, holding her shoulder. "You absolutely do, Edie. You're one of us." Hand on her chest, she finishes with "And if we've ever made you feel otherwise, I'm sorry."

Edelgard smiles until her eyes wander down to Annette's neckline. "Oh my," she says, voice getting rougher. The red dress from all those years ago still fits her, the skin above her neckline bare of all but her numerous freckles. Edelgard fights off the temptation to kiss every one of them. Age doesn't make Annette look like she does less than steal the show. 

Annette's smile is a little raunchy. "There's your first gift." Sylvain sputters, apparently not used to Annette out-flirting him. 

Ingrid takes the opportunity to keep them from making out in the bar. Clapping disruptively, she yells out "Okay! Drinks are on Sylvain again so go wild. We'll open the gifts later but since no one here is six we're not gonna gather around a cake and sing happy birthday. They have birthday cake flavored drinks, though. That's neato. Might have a few." 

Edelgard feels silly for ever thinking Ingrid had gotten meeker over the years. Still, the crew scatters around the bar-restaurant, leaving her and Annette in the center, smiling at each other. 

"Shall we?" Edelgard asks.

Annette approximately curtsies. "We shall." 

Edelgard enjoys seeing all the people there. Not even necessarily the individual, but the fact that they are _them._ Too often, she only sees them for funerals. It's so nice to see them with genuine smiles on their faces, taking over the reserved bar like soldiers taking a fortress. 

Claude and Petra stay at their table, ordering some finger food and a beer each that sits on the linoleum table. They talk with Edelgard and Annette, Claude and Annie getting into a rhythm based on natural chemistry and music class. "Almyran music is amazing!" she exclaims. Petra nods in agreement. "Like, there's something so grand about it but in a colorful way!" 

"Hey now," Claude says, wagging a finger. "Brigid's music is amazing too. I've never heard anything sound more free in such a controlled way. It's like they told someone to go nuts and he decided 'I will take every advantage of this opportunity.'"

Petra chuckles at the description. "I am admitting bias towards Brigid music. It is mesmerizing to play. And we are writing just to communicate our thoughts. It helps me to realize just how big they are." 

(Their gifts are a CD of Almyran folk music and a tin whistle to aid in this quest. Edelgard doesn't read Petra's card aloud but the words inside make her tear up. _Mo laoch._ My hero. Edelgard can't fathom being anyone's hero, much less someone as fantastic and idolized as Petra. 

She kisses Petra on the cheek, who returns it. "I'm afraid I might be butchering it, but… _go raibh maith agat?_ "

Petra giggles. "Close enough." Smiling wide: "Is breá liom tú, Edelgard.")

Cyril and Ashe are very easy to talk to because Annette knows them and talks their ears off so naturally that Edelgard comfortably slots in now and again. Ashe occasionally looks over at Edelgard as if appraising her, but he always smiles so sweetly. No wonder someone as simple and fussless as Cyril fell for him.

Annette mentions gardening at one point and Cyril points to a daffodil ornament on her head. "Wow, I didn't know daffodils lasted that long."

Annette giggles. "It's not real, silly!" 

Cyril ohhhs and looks at Edelgard. "I keep forgetting you garden, Miss Edelgard." 

"I hadn't known that you knew that in the first place, if I'm honest." 

(It makes sense, then, that when she opens their gift later, it's a variety of flower seeds that bloom and thrive through various parts of a year. She feels like she just got Ashe's approval, and though she's not sure how she got it, she'll take it.)

She doesn't spend too much time with Hapi and Yuri. Hapi's antisocial as usual, though she tries. "Definitely happy birthday, by the way." With a glint in her eye, she asks "what are you, sixty?" 

Edelgard chuckles and Annette elbows her, trying to hold her laughter and sputtering instead. "Eighty percent of that, but, you know… stay tuned." 

Yuri smiles, glad someone interacted well with his best friend, though the love in his eyes is unmissable. "I'll do my best." 

(Hapi always had a snarky sense of humor, even though she tried to leave it in the decades after Constance's disappearance. Thus, she gets a very well-drawn photo of herself at this age, one that manages to turn all her flaws into beauty. 

The note on the back reads _You can use it for yourself if you die soon but if not just keep it I guess- Hapi._ She's charmed. Whether Hapi knows it or not, grief hasn't stolen her charm.)

Byleth and Flayn… two people that Edelgard is eager to see. A piece of her heart will always belong to Byleth, but she's glad hers belongs to Flayn, the current superintendent of Garreg Mach. Flayn, who gushes about every student and faculty with her typical flowery, personalized eighteen-hundreds speak that Byleth silently but transparently lusts after every time. 

Eventually, conversation gets to Edelgard, Byleth bragging about her good grades in social studies while Edelgard blushes red enough to be a fire. Annette laughs and says "All these years and you still live to please _senpai._ " 

Edelgard playfully shoves her. "I mean, maybe in other subjects, but I genuinely loved social studies. It made me feel like part of the world, not just…"

Annette finishes for her. "Part of Byleth?" Edelgard almost snorts her drink out of her nose.

(The stack of biography books Flayn and Byleth got Edelgard make it clear that her teacher was listening to her just as much as she listened to Byleth.)

Dedue and Leonie are quite the new couple. Dedue, with his giant physique, white mohawk, and concentrated look in his eye, talks barely any compared to the girl at his side, looking at her with dedicated love. 

"I'm so glad I settled down," Leonie rambles. "I kind of accepted that I'd be up and running my entire life. Go places, keep security, then repeat. But once I got to know him closely like… lived in his home, was fed and comforted and held by him, I was like 'Sothis, please, I'd work as a cashier if it meant I kept him in my life." 

Dedue blushes, looking at her. "You are too kind, my love." 

Leonie holds his shoulder. "It's just the truth." 

Annette tries to hide her squeeing, but when caught, says "I'm so happy for you, dude. You deserve so much happiness. I mean it." 

(Perhaps the most telling part about the scarves that Dedue knitted is that they're a matching pair. She looks at him and smiles a knowing smile. He just shakes his head, smiling back.) 

Ferdinand and Hilda, both widows and best friends, true alliance of the gays. Edelgard doesn't know either too well nowadays- Hilda was at one time amazing at crying wolf to get others to help her and Ferdinand was certain he was good at everything else. Those were them as kids, though. Now, though they're still so grand, age has caught up with them and forced them down. It's a little sad to see, but their hidden dark side becomes more visible by the day.

She looks at Annette, who nods. Maybe for the sake of their mental health, they should sit this one out. 

(The gifts were still kind- Ferdinand's a black eagle ornament for a desk made of obsidian, and Hilda a voucher to the summer fair "for two" she drew out. It doesn't hit as hard because as much as she understands, a chain smoker with black ornaments everywhere and a depressed woman who loved the fair absolutely picked those out.)

"We're sorry we took so long to visit," Edelgard says, she and Annette slipping in the row across from where Sylvain and Ingrid sit. Sylvain, slouching against the wall, gives Edelgard the biggest shit-eating grin of his life. Undeterred, Edelgard correctly guesses that it only takes a pointed glance at Ingrid to humble him. 

"We're still glad you showed," Ingrid says. Jerking a thumb towards Sylvain: "This one was incredibly bored. You almost lost a designated driver." 

Sylvain groan-laughs. "Ingrid, do they have to know?" 

Annette, regular-laughing, says "I certainly don't mind knowing!" 

Ingrid grins, not making a sound. Edelgard just gives Sylvain a look that says "you chose this one". Sylvain sighs in surrender, sitting up with a glint in his eye.

"So what's the _deal_ between you two?" Sylvain asks like he doesn't know. Edie can't process his words until she replays them, but by then he's already adding "are you two, like, dating or what?" and no no no _no goddess dammit._

The two girls look at each other, waiting for the other to answer. Edelgard all but begs for Annette to, but her eyes widen and she looks frozen in place, jaw dropped in a fresh panic. After a few seconds of improvising and Sylvain tittering, Annette says "You know how it is. Can't get her off my back!" 

"Would you _want_ to, is the thing?" Ingrid asks with a knowing grin. 

Annette looks at Edie. "Girl, we're getting tag-teamed!" 

Edie looks straight at Sylvain, whose shit-eating grin takes on a tinge of desperation. She is merciless as she says "Quite. A risky maneuver considering Sylvain has long given me information o-" 

" _Let's_ talk about something else, yeah?" 

Edelgard smiles, accomplished. "Love you," she mouths.

"Love you too, you prissy Austen lesbian," he mouths back.

Ingrid follows Edelgard to the bathroom. While she expected a dingy heartless fast food bathroom, the single-occupant bathroom is wood-paneled with a rug and an enormous mirror. It's so much a surprise that she forgets Ingrid shouldn't be there until she sees her. 

" _Ohhhhh_ hhhhello, Ingrid!" 

She returns the welcome with "Hey, you probably shouldn't do that to the counter."

Edelgard stands on her two feet again. "Ah. Mistakes were made, I suppose. So, uh…" The two of them look around awkwardly. "Need me to leave?" 

Ingrid shakes her head. "I just, uh… wanted to tell you something." She scratches the side of her head. "It's about Mercedes."

Edelgard hadn't thought of her all night and she kind of wishes it stayed that way. Still, she's never had anything against Ingrid. "I'll hear it. You can imagine, though, that I'm not very keen to speak on the dead." 

"Oh no, I get it." Ingrid clears her throat. "I can just imagine. But that's why I wanted to to talk to you to, like, give you closure." 

"Closure?" 

Edie faces her and Ingrid in the mirror. Ingrid meets the gaze of her reflection, donned in an impressive pantsuit. "I wanted to tell you that we talked a lot. I promise you that she regretted how she treated you. She… called herself an idiot who didn't know what she was doing, or driving you away. That sort of fear was, I guess, a thing with her."

"Oh." That's all that Edelgard can bring herself to say. She… didn't expect Mercedes to think that. She herself had a hard time actually relieving herself of blame. It felt too egotistical to do, and yet...

"I just… she probably never expressed that to you," Ingrid continues. "I wanted to make sure you knew. You know, you're Sylvain's closest friend. I knew you were good people, so I just wanted to…" She spreads her hands. "Clear the air, you know." 

Edelgard smiles. "Absolutely, Ingrid. Thank you very much for this." She takes a deep breath- could it be the first where she doesn't blame herself for the failed marriage? "I see that you're every bit as good a woman as I've heard." As soon as she says that, she bites her lip, telling only herself _why did I say that?_

Ingrid chuckles. "That's… huh!" Either way, she holds her hand up. "But yeah. I wanna be a friend, so I wanted to tell you."

Edelgard smiles, taking her hand and shaking it. "Thank you, Ingrid. Truly." 

Both are smiling by the time the handshake ends. Then, both of them look around. It's Ingrid who awkwardly asks "So, uhm… who actually went in here?" 

Edelgard thinks for a few seconds. Then: "I honestly don't know." 

"Uhm… fuck." 

Then she laughs, masculine and majestic. Edelgard places a hand on her shoulder and follows suit. 

  
  


(Edelgard doesn't recall either of them going to a bridal show but she appreciates the two _hers_ mugs, matching bathrobes, and the lingerie that she very notably leaves in the bag. She looks at Sylvain, whose eyes twinkle with mirth like he won, like he doesn't get that she just _might._

Still, she knows without a doubt that Ingrid gave the better gift.)

Annette really has been her co-pilot all night, with her as she talked to everyone and got comfortable celebrating. The two sit on a stool set before the bar, nursing drinks and looking at each other for seconds at a time. 

"They really thought they were doing something, didn't they?" Annette says, gesturing to the style. 

"I dunno," Edelgard says. "If this were a normal bar my memories would, like latch onto it cause it was here and you were here," She snorts, gesturing to her dress. "In _that._ " 

Annette snorts. "I live to please." 

"You're doing a great job," Edelgard responds with a wink. Goddess, any drunker and she'd tease her about how she could please her back. 

"Oh my God, we're starting to feel it," Annette cackles. 

"I've gathered." 

Annette reaches into her purse. "Then I better give you this before we get too drunk to remember."

"Oh, your gift." 

" _Yeah,_ your gift, I'd forget my own birthday before I forget your gift." 

"Think you already did." 

"See?" she defends. "Now, hold still. I wanna…" She pulls a small golden object attached to a white ringlet of fabric. "C-close your eyes too, okay?" Edelgard does as told, feeling the fabric tie around her throat through a hook that brushes against her neck. 

There's no sound between then. Ambient sound of the others around them doesn't exist. It _must,_ true, but somehow it does not. It's her and Annette, the world entire.

"You look beautiful," Annie whispers, gingerly taking her hand. 

"I feel beautiful." 

"You are." 

Edelgard opens her eyes. Annette's digging in her bag for something. "Uhm, uhm, gimme a sec," she pleads just as she pulls out a compact makeup mirror. She looks Edelgard in the eye with love in hers. Edie doesn't know what took her so long.

The compact opens. Edelgard sees herself, posture uncanny, body rigid, and on her neck above everything, a golden daffodil charm. "Nettie," she whispers. "This is… it's so beautiful, baby." 

"As beautiful as the ones you tend and grow for me," she responds. "Like, I know how they started but… Bernie Baby didn't expect this, I bet, so many years later… they feel like love, and I wanted to give some back." 

"Some…?" 

"Some… love." 

Edelgard smiles so gently it's felt more than seen. "I feel it," she says. "I feel it." 

"I want to feel it more." 

That decides it. Looking to see everyone else occupied, the two face each other, Annette giggling giddily. It's so strange, seeing this moment ahead without anxiety. Without fear. Without missing the signs. Without worrying it will go up in flames. To know that this isn't a kiss, it's the _first_ kiss.

The two meet in the middle as they connect, head turning, a gentle smack between the two. Edelgard wishes it could last longer, but they'll have time for that.

Later. 

Annette smiles. "Happy birthday, Edelgard." 

Edelgard returns it. "Thank you," she responds breathlessly when what she really meant was _I love you._

Even at midnight no one's gone. Even the ones that aren't drinking are still here, taking a break from their lives and enjoying the moment. Edelgard sits where the jaunty art piece would be in the center, Annette resting on her right shoulder. An odd wave of melancholy takes over as she acknowledges that she will have to say goodbye to everyone. Then they'll go home, and then… When will she see them again? Will she ever get that chance? She's lost people in so many cruel ways. Sometimes in full rooms like this, she sees everyone and knows that they will die too. She will die too. Ann- 

An argument breaks out so suddenly it jostles Annette. She hears clamoring out of a booth, someone trying to apologize, and a shrill voice scream " _yes,_ Didi too! What the _fuck?!_ " Then, Edelgard puts it together in time to see a tearful Hapi burst into the bathroom she and Ingrid left.

At their table is Yuri, looking more dejected the more people glance at him. "Sorry, everyone," he says coolly, trying to smile. "I think I hit some conversational trip wire."

Edelgard closes her eyes, feeling tears form. No, no, no, that's not right. After everything she did to stay calm through so much wrong in her life! Why is this even happening? She's been having a good time until now. Why does this-

"Hey, Edie-bean." 

Edelgard looks at her. "Nettie?" she asks helplessly. 

Annette gasps. "Edie, you're _crying._ " 

Edelgard feels her face obligingly even though she knows she has. "Damn," she mumbles. "I'm too drunk for this.' 

Annette shakes her head. "I've been with you all night, sweetheart. Three drinks isn't pissed. I've had three too and I've been pissed too but, like, not right now."

"Ah." 

Annette looks concerned. "I hope you've been having a good time," she says, tone lowering. "I, uhm… I wanted that for you. We're having a great time tonight… right?"

Edelgard looks around the room. Her eyes seem slow to catch up to Annette. In fact, everything about her feels far too slow. 

"Yeah, we are," she mumbles. "Truly, Nettie. I'm glad for that, I just… with all of these people here, all of these feelings, I'm just… thinking, I guess." Annette looks at her with the pity of someone watching their friend near tears.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, but Edelgard doesn't think that can end it. 

"Like, I don't wanna say them all because they mean a lot to you too, Annie. I just… them, and Constance… a-a-and Hubert, and, Dor, D-dorothea…" She bows her head. "Lysithea," she ekes out at a higher pitch than she knew was possible. Fanning off her eyes: "I didn't want to say anything because you, you did so well, Annie, b-but, it's just so _empty_ and, a-a-and I'm just _looking for them…_ " 

Edelgard breaks. Maybe she's needed to for a while. Maybe even as she cried at funerals she never mourned, forcing the sorrow to recede before it dared stay. Now, she can't help but weep every tear she thought she stored away.

As soon as the first sob hits, Annette embraces her, whispering a shaky "I understand." Edelgard starts to cry while apologizing for crying, making a scene. "None of that," Annette scolds. "Let it out. This is for _you_ , ya damn goof."

"This just… fuck." Edelgard doesn't have a thought left. She just takes Annette into her arms and clings to her, sobs breaking from her chest. Annette holds her close, patting her back in haphazard bursts, but Edelgard is hard to calm. She's never wept in public before outside of funerals, and even then… 

Soon, another warm pair of arms reach below Annette's. She stops crying just long enough to see Byleth, still as clumsy and intimate as ever, and cries again. She always thought her crush was just one of opportunity- she was _there,_ after all- but maybe Byleth _does_ care about her. Maybe she _is_ her friend.

Another person grabs her into a hug from above the bench, hands resting on her stomach. Before Edelgard can look up, he says "Aww, princess, it's not much of a party if you spend it sad like this."

"She's got a lot to be sad about, Sylvain," Annette argues, digging into her grieving frame. Leaning on her shoulder like she loves to, she whispers _it's okay, Edie. It's okay, darling._ Edie breathes a couple of times to center herself but Annette says _it's okay_ again and she's helpless, she's hopeless and continues to cry. 

"I'm sorry," she chokes. "I'm not making this party…" Her own lamentations interrupt her. Annette just shushes her, head on her shoulder.

"I know she does, Annie," Sylvain responds. He sounds only marginally like his cool cucumber persona. "This happens. Even at awesome parties. You wouldn't believe the places I bawled my eyes out at." 

"I think she _would,_ Sylvain," Ingrid responds. Edelgard sputters a little; she swears it was laughter.

" _Okay,_ I'll give her that. Still, yeah. Even if it's not fun, you know… if you're sad, you're sad." 

"Very right," Byleth echoes, a touch of recognition in her voice.

Edie disappears inside herself, her tears receding into empty sobs. Annette feels like she's disappearing through her shoulder. 

Edie thinks of the look on Sylvain's face, the rare look where he has to work to look casual and unaffected. Byleth is a lot harder to work out, but they're both good at leaving out a little bit to mourn when they have their best faces on. Edelgard can't get away with it; once, Annette admitted that she always thought Edie was the saddest woman she ever met. It's not getting any better now. 

"I miss them too," Annette admits. "I mean, you knew that. Caspie, Bernie Baby. Other people too. Father… We all have. So I could, like, tell you life isn't fair, but I wanna tell you you're not alone and it's okay that you're sad about this. I promise." 

Edelgard breathes unsteadily, shaking so much. Annette peppers her skin with kisses like the sun leaving little freckles on her body. 

Sylvain clears his throat. "I, ah… I miss Felix a lot," he admits. His voice is the sort of toneless that it always is when he addresses a hard topic. 

Edelgard hears footsteps, but maybe she just imagines them. Byleth says next "Losing Hanneman and Manuela in the same month…" She swallows. "They were my peers. I remember them bickering back and forth in the lounge over anything." With a sniffle: "Manuela was only forty-two. Younger than us. It hurts." 

"Marianne," Hilda admits, tears in her voice. "It's been a decade and she's still my baby." She's never remarried.

"I miss Felix too," Ingrid explains, as stately as ever. "I think that's a given. But I also miss Dimitri. He should have…" She sighs. "He deserved better. And I'm not really at peace with that. Mercedes… I miss her, but she died happy. Dimitri…" She looks weak. "I'm sorry, I-I'll stop here." 

"Come here," Sylvain insists to his best friend.

"Miss Rhea a lot." Cyril is as point-blank as ever. "And Lysithea. Glad I got to love again but without my mentor and my princess, it's definitely been different." Edelgard knows he loved her. He knows she did too. The fact that they're friends is because of his big heart.

"I miss Caspar so often," Ashs says, and Edelgard swears that she can feel Annette's heart drop, her body slack. Ashe introduced the two of them, so they both miss him together, opposite sides of a mountain. "I named a cat after him, though. The scamp loves to cause trouble, just like him."

"Dimitri," is all Dedue says. 

"Didi's a whopper." Out of the bathroom, Hapi tries to project confidence she doesn't have. "And I'm still missin' Constance too, so you're not alone there, Eddy. I don't know what happened to her. Is she still alive? Is she dead? Was she alive for a while and now she's dead and I only just now lost her? Was I just not en…" She stops that train of thought. Like Hilda, she never married again. Edelgard recalls Hapi staring into the distance, silent during Constance's memorial. She recalls staring with her. 

Yuri claps her back. "You know that I'm here to share that with, Haps."

Hapi hums shakily. "I'm really sorry, Yuri-bird." 

"All forgiven," Yuri says coolly, even with an edge on his voice. It's quiet for some time before he clears his throat. "Oh, yeah, uh… Balthus. Big guy deserved better than he got." He doesn't need to say more.

"I'm confident that Father is at the side of Sothis with Aunt Rhea," Flayn asserts. "Whenever I grow sad, I think of such. It's what he worked towards his whole life." 

Ferdinand sniffles. "Hubie," is all he can choke out before the word morphs into a bitter cry. Edelgard sincerely hopes someone holds him because she knows the sound of someone falling apart. 

"Iggy and Raph I miss a lot, but I think everyone does. I, ah… I gave him a hard time in school, but I was always impressed with the man Lorenz turned out to be," Claude interjects with that same breezy confidence before his voice loses volume. "Wish he could have lived that way for longer." 

"I am forever missing _Mo Ghra_ too; you are knowing this." Petra still speaks the same charming, authoritative way. Edelgard will always be in love with that a little, desire to be led by such kindness and confidence. "I remember how she was walking, how she was always talking to me in a different way than everyone else… how she was singing in the opera… but over time those turned into happy memories." She pats a back; likely Ferdinand's. "I am hoping that you all will be remembering your heart's love in the same way someday."

Leonie closes out. "I miss everyone who died," she admits. "Alois was super nice. I don't even mind his puns when I think about 'em. Linhardt was a helpful dude. Even when he wouldn't shut up about history, I enjoyed it. Raph? Sothis, don't get me started. I miss his hugs. I miss all the things Ignatz never got to paint." She stops to think for a moment. "Honestly, I even miss the guard out front. Kyle, I think? He was a sweetheart. Nicer than any other guard I've met. I, uh… way too large a sample size."

The ensuing laughter isn't universal, but everyone needs it and it feels like it surrounds her when she hears it and laughs too, a genuine messy laugh. Annette catches it. " _Edie_ ," she whispers like she's seen Sothis. "You're laughing." Edie's touched that Annie cares, because she hasn't really laughed in so long. She thought she forgot. She's glad she remembers.

"Ohhhhh, hehe," Edie breathes. "So I am." 

There's a maxim that Annette taught her far too casually to hide that she knew that it applied to her after all. "Ashe says that he read somewhere that being queer was being just a little in love with your friends," Annette told her, just _told_ her like it was no big deal. This was three years ago. 

"Oh," Edelgard responded in all her brilliance. "I, ah… that's interesting." She forgets even now where they were. 

"Mmhmm." Annette said. "You, uh…" She giggles, eyes challenging her. "Whatcha think about that?" 

Edelgard must tell herself to be brave like her ancestor hundreds of years before, who dared to take on the Goddess knowing it was futile, tearing through heaven knowing that she wouldn't stay there. 

"I'll say 'thank you' and love you back."

Annette liked that answer, but even then Edelgard knew it came off as too smooth, too practiced, even if she had to call upon the strength of a god-killer to do so at all. 

Edelgard had never been good at telling how much she's in love with someone. She was a little in love with Dorothea, a little in love with Lysithea, a little in love with Mercedes. She's a little in love with Sylvain, with Petra, with Byleth.

Just a little.

She knows, however, that her whole heart is Annette's. Annette is how Edelgard knows that she can love with every fiber of her being. Annette, she loves with parts of herself that she doesn't know. Annette, she feels in every beating against her chest. Annette is someone her life wouldn't be right without. Annette is someone that she wants to spread out, kiss every inch of her body, lock their tongues together in a promise of reverence and worship. 

So, well… that's something. 

  
  


**Lower your eyelids to die with the sun**

At Hubert's funeral, Edelgard was the speaker and the singer. It was impossible to see a world where Hubert would make it to fifty. Not because he was suicidal (though his propensity to chain smoke gave Edelgard cause to question) or because he was so nihilistic. Everyone else, his husband included, were concerned that he wanted to die. Edelgard knew he didn't want to, especially after ceasing his rivalry with Ferdinand. One of the last things he said to her before cancer took him under for good is that he never had a desire to take his own life; he was just a nihilist with no greed over how long his life was. 

Edelgard remembered smirking. "Would have been longer if you didn't go up to a pack a day." 

" _Come on,_ Edelgard. Please have mercy on my poor soul," he had joked. Gallows humor was how they went through life ever since they had met.

"You're the one who went up to a pack a day, Hubert," Edelgard chastised. "Which, need I stress, is something like thirty or so?"

" _Twenty_ , Edelgard, do you know anything?"

Edelgard rolled her eyes. "I do not know the amount of cigarettes in a pack, which is why I am going to live and you are not." 

Hubert chuckled wickedly. "Well, fantastic for you. You can be an eighty-year-old spinster at the nursing home who still has yet to confess her feelings to Annette." 

She sighed. "Likely so, but since unlike your death it is not a certainty, I will see if life protects me from the sting of having feelings for the same length it did you." 

Hubert had looked at her, amusement in his eyes, reaching for her hands. She gave them to him without a fight. He takes them and says "I'll miss these little battles of wit." 

"I'll miss _you._ " 

He looks at her. The smile disappears and he just takes her hand. There are a million apologies racing through his eyes like ticker tape, but all he says is "I'll miss you as well, Edelgard."

Edelgard broke loose and hugged him. Neither cried. Neither bled. Edelgard knew people would, like poor Ferdinand. She just also knew that, compared to the rest of whom she had lost, she could say goodbye to Hubert without hurting.

Or, well, for too long. 

She knew Hubert by heart. Though it was an odd thought, the more gaunt and harrowing he looked, the better. That was likely only a thing that he could pull off, and whenever she pulled out his drawing, someone so utterly unique can be perceived in a way. She spoke of him, describing his arrogance, his foolishness, his nihilism, and _his inability to fully process that people were right to love him because he was honest, open minded, humble, and so intensely loving- whether or not he knew it, we did it anyways because he deserves it._

She swallows after her speech, trying not to cry before getting into the song. _I, ah, I'm not gonna sing today, something you should be grateful for._ A few people laugh, which calms her nerves. _I'm going to play an instrumental song. Hubert would be enraged that I shared his secret favorite song with the world like this but-_

(It's what he gets for smoking himself to an early grave.)

(It's what he listened to as he died, the music coming to a low just as he departed.)

(He was so scared that someone at the M83 concert would recognize him, how silly is that?)

_Well, if he wants to haunt me over it, he knows I know how to hold a seance._

It's ten minutes of the grandest music she will ever hear. Ferdinand recognizes it and sobs from the audience. It makes sense that Hubie shared it with him. 

He's crying when he embraces Edelgard. She hugs back. _He loved you so much, Ferdinand. Truly._

_I hope so._

Edelgard understands Ferdinand's apprehension. The day of the funeral, she tries to smile and share comfort with everyone. The day after, she cries until there are no tears left. It may not have been what Hubert wanted, but those tears are the consequences of his actions.

The only friend as good to her is Annette. Annette is often scared of losing her. Edelgard knows it will pale next to the color that Annie's loss will bring to the world, that she is at best a single rose and Annette is a garden. She is amazed at her luck to have her closest friend, greatest love alive, but maybe death is too considerate of everyone to deprive them of the North Star.

~

Edelgard's eyes are still red and puffy after they get home. Sylvain drove them home, Ingrid following in her car. As she and Annette said their goodbyes to him, he said "good luck!" Edie flipped him off, but the cat's been running far from the bag for ages. 

Annette is sweet to her, opening the door and guiding her to her couch. Though she's limping somewhat less and her shoulders barely burn at all, she hasn't really progressed for a little while. If this is as good as it gets, Edie better start practicing. 

The two sit on the couch together, Edelgard wrapping an arm around her. Annie gently nuzzles against her breast. A bit bold, but at this point, it would be an insult to pretend she doesn't know what she's doing. 

"You knew, didn't you?" 

" _Miiiiighta_ had an inkling." 

Edelgard flicks her nose. "For how long, silly?"

Annette leans up so that her face and Edelgard's are level to each other. Edelgard looks into her eyes, trying to keep it cool with a smile, but she's gripping Annette's shoulders so she doesn't fall.

"Not long enough," is the reply, so husky that it disarms any defenses that Edelgard has left. 

Edelgard tilts her head, waiting to see if Annette follows suit. She does, closing her eyes. "I hope you don't mind," she whispers.

"I don't mind. I never minded." 

"Oh," she breathes. "Good."

Edelgard can't close hers until they kiss. 

Annette tastes… remarkably like the bubblegum lip gloss the little shit had on all night, didn't she? Bubblegum is perfect for her, and Edelgard trembles at the thought of truly kissing the missed connection of three decades, knees wobbling beneath her. 

Annette pulls apart for just a moment. "S'ok," she responds, breathless and needy as she gently lowers Edelgard onto her back, resting her against the arm of the couch. Normally, Annette would ask if she's good instead of desperately resuming the kiss, and Edelgard cannot say she minds the ill manners. 

Annette wraps her arms around Edelgard, brushing against her breasts. Edelgard throws her hands into Annette's hair, letting her tongue draw heavy breaths from her own mouth. They don't open their eyes, but Edelgard can't keep them off where she imagines Annette is. 

Annette breaks for a moment. "Sorry," she says before she even fully leaves Edelgard's lips. "I don't know what to say, I just pounce-" 

"I love you," Edelgard whispers, flame in her chest. "I love you so much." 

"I know," Annette says, eyes glistening. "I know, and I love you too."

Edelgard giggles, but she's crying too. "Look at us," she jokes, voice shaking. "Emotional old bitches." 

Annette laughs. "Totally." She places her hand on Edelgard's cheek, a brazen knee scaling up between her legs. "You've always been my favorite old bitch, though." 

Edelgard wraps her arms around her neck. "You've been mine too." Then: "Probably my favorite young bitch too."

Annette fake-awws. "Nothing for my thirties?" 

Edelgard snorts. Emboldened, she says "You _know_ you've been my favorite MILF." 

"Edelgard!" Annette scolds, cackling so hard she falls into Edelgard's breasts. 

"What?" Edelgard accuses. "You liked that!" 

Annette vibrates with laughter. Then in a voice so steamy Edelgard doesn't know who this girl is: "You know I did." 

Edelgard insistently pulls at the waist of Annette's red dress, and she gets the message. They don't talk for a while after.

  
  


Exhaustion and a decent hangover keeps the both of them in bed until two in the afternoon. Annette's wearing a tank top and boxers while Edelgard was able to snag a long band T-Shirt to sleep in. It goes to her knees and says _Semisonic_ on it, so it's clearly very old. "I really thought they were gonna make it big!" Annette argued last night. 

Edelgard wakes up a while after Annette, who just looks at her, head lifted up in her right hand. "Hey, gorgeous," she says, every wrinkle around her eyes adding to their smile. The afternoon is humid and there's too much traffic to hear any birds, but they make their own beauty. 

"Nettie," is all she responds with, still groggy. "Sight for sore eyes. I could get used to waking up with you." She finally smiles, she thinks. "Might take a while, though." 

Annette chuckles just enough for laughter to rise in her chest. Still, there's something in her eyes. "Yeah, like… I'll keep you safe as long as I can. Least I can do, yeah?" 

Edelgard meets her eyes with love. "Nettie, I'm not going anywhere, I promise." 

Annette looks away, to Edelgard's concern. "I mean, I'm doing my best to believe it. I'm just worried, you know? Like…" For a moment, her eyes belong to two people, either gray or blue. 

"Oh," Edelgard realizes. "Oh, baby, you're scared, aren't you?" 

"A little," she admits shakily. "I… they're the only two people before you. I've already dived in without thinking. Well, that's not true. I've been afraid a while. That's why I needed you to confess. Cause I was scared."

"I understand," Edie insists, cupping her face and kissing above both eyes. "I'm… I'm scared too. But I can't imagine how you feel. All I can do is promise that I'll be there and I'll make the moments we're together worth it." 

Annette nods, still shaking. "I'm scared," she admits. 

"I know, Nettie." 

"Like, I said I was scared before, but I'm scared now," she explains with watery eyes. "And I'll be scared as long as we're alive because I just, I love you so much and I wouldn't give you up for anything." 

Edie blinks a tear away. "I know. You did so much to get here. To show me you loved me before you could tell me. I'll… I'll never feel safer around anyone but you." 

"Even though I'm a black widow?" 

If Edelgard has her way, that will be quite temporary. "It's not my business what happened between you and them. What matters is what's between you and me. Because it's different."

Annette sniffles. "You're perfect, Edie, I swear." The hug she gives is one of comfort- the give and the need. "I'm sorry it took me so long to let you in."

"I forgive you," Edelgard tells her. "I don't think there's anything to forgive but if there is, I forgive you."

Annette smiles, but she's silent, looking down. Edelgard waits for every second it takes despite the anxiety it causes.

Finally: "Remember your twenty-first birthday?" 

"Mostly the parts that involve you," Edie admits. "The alcohol certainly helped me forget after a while, but yeah." 

Annette's eyes widen. "Oh, so you were telling the truth."

"I was?" Good to know, she supposes. 

"Yeah, I, ah… the night of your twenty-first… I was your designated driver. I took you home and then on the steps you kissed me. And… it was really nice. I just got lost for a few minutes but you invited me inside and it kind of hit me then that, wait, she's drunker than I've ever seen her. So I, like, turned you down. You were disappointed but you got it. So you kissed me one more time and went inside." 

Edelgard hums, stroking her hair more. "Yeah, I have no memory of that at all." After a pause: "Thanks, by the way, for telling me off. Too many people…" She doesn't finish that thought, just getting lost in the waves her fingers pull through Annette's hair. She doesn't want to.

"I mean, I probably shouldn't have at all, but I guess euphoria and all that." Annette waves it off. "But that's not the can of worms I'm thinking of. Because when I asked the next day if you remembered your party and you said you blacked out during the ride home. I figured you only kissed me because you were drunk and we were young-" Edelgard snorts before chuckling mischievously. "-and we'd probably have done it with a cucumber back then." Edelgard outright laughs. "And I guess I was too confused about how I felt and if you actually liked me to really make a move." She sighs fondly. "And however short it was I wouldn't trade my time with Bernie Baby or Caspie for the world. But for the last twenty-six years. I always wondered if I'd made a mistake." 

Edelgard shakes her head. "We can't think of it that way," she insists. "It was a long, confusing, hard road, but it's the only way we can guarantee it ends in each other's arms." 

"You think it was worth it, Edie-bean?" The hope in Annette's tone gives away the answer. 

Edelgard knows hers too. Throughout their awkward student years, through the miracle on her twenty-first, through all three spouses, throughout changed careers and lost heirlooms, through injury and pain and so many losses to them both, trapped at shore watching ships coming in sink into the seas- all of it for this, Annette laying in her arms, in love with her, finally her life partner in name as well as all she's done and been…

"Very worth it, Nettie," she swears. "Very worth it." 

"I think so too, Edie, I promise," Annette assures her. "You won't have to worry for as long as we live."

Edelgard holds her fiercely, gently moving back so they are face-to-face. "I hope we both live until we're a hundred years old."

"Mm," Annette hums, nose-to-nose with her. Her sweetheart. Her lover. Her girlfriend. Her partner. "Maybe one-twenty. What's the oldest a human ever lived anyway?" 

Edelgard thinks. "I can't remember, but that sounds like a fair number." 

"One-twenty it is, then."

"One-twenty it is."

The two fall silent. Annette rests on her shoulder, nose disappearing behind her neck. Edelgard leans her chin on her head, face-down. There's nothing that feels more natural than this.

  
  


When they get up at five, they sit on the couch doing their own things. Edelgard can't tell what Annette's doing but she herself is on her laptop, SD card from her phone inside. She looks through the candid shots from the party, glad she asked for consent. They're all part of this now, from Hilda to Sylvain, Hapi to Dedue, Ferdinand to Byleth. 

There's at least one fine shot of everyone. They're the only ones she saves, but she knows that she can't do all of them at one location. The collection she's making has to be varied, unique, a snow globe of the city rather than the blueprints of one bar.

She'll take people places. Do things, become friends, immortalize them in her project. She can't wait to be a part of them. 

She keeps two in her bookmarks- one of Dedue gently cleaning off a table with a wet napkin, another of Flayn listening dreamily to Byleth talking. She can't wait to help them tell their stories to the world. 

Annette looks over to see the folder with three saved pictures, making one out by the thumbnail. "It's me! Can you click me?" 

Edelgard blushes but complies. The image of her trying to get to a nesting bird fills the screen. Edelgard has it memorized- her cropped shirt, her wild hair, her grateful smile. "I, uh…" She bows shyly. "I'm really that cute?"

"That and more."

"Cool," Annette blushes. "Cool cool cool." 

Edelgard closes the folder, then the laptop. Casually, Annette leans toward her with a smile, still looking at her phone. Edelgard smiles, then closes her eyes. She needs to think of what she wants to do with these. How she wants to go. How to treat the memories of the footsteps they take before their last ones.

She's so used to capturing them after they die. When they're alive, though… the love is stronger than she expected.

"Love you, Edie-bean," Annette repeats absently, just so Edelgard knows.

She knows. "I love you too, Nettie."

She can't believe it, but she knows.

  
  


**Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end**

"He _did?_ Holy shit, Ingrid!"

"I wasn't quite sure I believed it at first," Ingrid admits as they both stand outside the museum. Or, it calls itself a museum. Annette can't judge, though. The college used to be a colossal monastery and after Emperor Edelgard's fall Fodlan got more religious as soon as the first dynasty ended. A little hole in the wall reno'd mini-mart in a district on a fine line between trendy and dystopic isn't where one would expect the queer lives museum in Fodlan's capital to be, but it's a start, and it's under her and Edelgard's names. 

"I mean, yeah! It sounds like such a classic Sylvain trick! To jump straight into proposing marriage?"

Ingrid nods, wrapping her windbreaker around her. "I was sure he was either joking or fucking with me," she continues. "But I saw where we were right on the steps of the Blue Lions classroom where we all met. Then I saw the look in his eyes. The _one_ thing Sylvain _never_ wants to seem like is _desperate,_ and yet-"

"Oh my goodness!" Annette has to resist the urge to jump up and down. "I never knew he could be so romantic!" 

Ingrid smiles. Eyes off in distant bridges and overpriced restaurants, she says "The first thing I asked was 'is this a joke?' If it was, I'd probably have dented his goddamned head. Like, sorry for another funeral, but I burned the body so I've already got the ashes." 

Annette can't believe, even for a second, that this woman was once so timid and nervous as a classmate. "I'm so glad he wasn't." She swallows. "But yeah, he wasn't. He and Edie-bean talk all the time. He was smitten with you. Think he had been for way too long." 

Ingrid's eyes widen. "Really?" she asks, pleading in that lovely rustic voice she's always had. 

"Come now, Ingrid, do you think I am a liar? For shame." 

Annette laughs at Edelgard's voice, having seen her approach for a few seconds. Ingrid's more surprised, turning abruptly to face her. "Not as bad as all that," she promises. "I just know I'd have to work through a lot of feelings early had he tried it before." 

Edelgard nods with a smile. "Lovely ring," she notes. "I told him 'pick something lovely, but simple. You want her not to think you're a blithering idiot for a few moments.'" 

"I'm taking her ring-shopping with me before the wedding."

Annette jumps in the air with a _bwah!_ as Sylvain approaches. "Hello, doofus," Edelgard greets. "My absolute congrats for not screwing this up."

Sylvain laughs. "I'm like fine wine! I only get better with time!" 

"I'll allow it." Edelgard steps forward and invites him into a hug. "I'm happy for you, Sylv."

"Thanks, Ed," Sylvain responds. "I've never been as happy as I've been to have her."

"That's the nicest thing I've ever heard a man say about a woman." With a look on your face: "And you're _Sylvain._ "

Sylvain chuckles half-heartedly. "I aim to impress."

Edelgard smiles. "Let me amend my statement- I'm proud of you, Sylvain." 

Sylvain audibly swallows. "That's insane, Edelgard. Thank you."

"It's not insane. You've made me proud."

Annette looks at Ingrid with a smile, never yet finding a second where she's bored with Edelgard. Ingrid is more practical. "Look, this is nice, but I only brought a windbreaker today. Can we go in before I become an ice sculpture?" 

Edelgard gets the keys to the museum. "Absolutely, Ingrid." 

"We're from _Faerghus,_ Ingrid!" Annette jokes. "We're used to the cold!" 

"Says the one not living next to an active fire field!" Ingrid responds. As she does, Sylvain puts his leather jacket on her. "Thank you, Sylvain, honestly." 

Sylvain laughs. "I was born in the Northernmost point in Fodlan. I'll be fine." 

As Edelgard unlocks it, Ingrid walks in, Sylvain close behind. "I'm keeping this on," she says. "Place has a mean draft." 

"I'll live with that." 

"Shit, you better." 

Annette and Edelgard look at each other. It's really a little crazy how it's been a year and a half and Annette's still waking up to how much she loves Edie-bean. All of their life together, she thought they were best friends. She thought the attraction that she felt was a strong bond (yes, an actual "I would have sex with this female friend I'm not gay for" bond, shut up). Then Edelgard turned up the heat and Annette was cooked. But she thought she was poison. She thought she'd kill Edelgard like she must have killed Caspie and Bernie Baby. 

It's been a year and a half. Not enough proof, but she doesn't feel that way anymore. This is different. She's different. Edelgard is like no one she's ever met, and she'll stay that way for as long as they live.

Annette takes Edelgard's hand. Their rings touch each others' flesh. "Ready, Edie-bean?" 

Edelgard smiles. "I'm ready. I've always been ready." 

Annette blushes, closing her eyes as it overtakes her face. It feels nice, knowing that the way things were are the way things are and are the way things will be, except they can just be honest with each other. 

Life is a risk that she'll lose that, but she values it more than she fears the loss.

That's probably supposed to be the case.

"That's what I thought, sweetheart."

The two walk inside, letting the door and the world fall into place behind them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from I'll Keep You Safe by Sleeping at Last.
> 
> In order, chapters are
> 
> The War by SYML  
> Quiet Light by The National  
> Two Slow Dancers by Mitski  
> Holding on by The War On Drugs  
> Dreams by The Cranberries  
> Samskeyti by Sigur Ros  
> Shadow of the Day by Linkin Park  
> Us Against The World by Coldplay  
> Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun by M83  
> Closing Time by Semisonic


End file.
